Promises To Keep
by Cirocco
Summary: Nobody said doing the right thing would be easy (season 7, around the LA Trilogy).
1. Confession

**CHAPTER 1: CONFESSION**

**Author's Note:** This is a sequel to _Walk and Don't Look Back_, but you don't have to read that story to understand this one.

_Monday, October 16  
12:30 am_

"I did cheat on you."

The words hung in the air.

Deborah stared at Rey for a minute. "Are you - is this a joke?"

"I wish it was."

She cast about for something, anything to say. To pin this down. To make this either go away or become real.

They had been dancing together, chatting casually. She had brought up one of her recent in-service training sessions for the church counselors, in which their priest had directed them to tell one-time adulterers not to confess to their spouses, much to her disgust. She had jokingly made Rey promise that if he ever cheated on her, he'd at least respect her enough to tell her.

That's all it was. A conversation about a situation at church that had made her angry. That's all it was. That's all it could be. How did it go from a conversation about a patronizing priest and theoretical adulterers to... this?

I did cheat on you, he had said.

"When?"

"The day Mickey Scott was executed."

Suddenly it was real.

She slowly withdrew her hands from his, staring at him, his eyes still meeting hers, but noting her withdrawal with a press of his lips. "You... you slept with another woman?"

"Yes."

"What happened?"

"I told you I went to see McCoy instead of taking you to the church bazaar. I didn't. I left the precinct and went to Central Park, and read the paper. I was going to leave but this girl came up and asked to borrow my paper, and then we started talking and she invited me to lunch."

"You didn't go see McCoy?" Deborah tried to remember that day - it was so long ago. She remembered the church bazaar, remembered the execution, and Lennie's accident. And Claire Kincaid's death. But not the details of what happened when.

He nodded. "I called you from the restaurant and I told you I wasn't feeling too good and you said I should just take some time to myself-" he swallowed hard and closed his eyes, pausing for a moment. "I thought - I thought I'd just go to lunch and then go see Father Morelli." He met her gaze again and she was struck by the sorrow in his eyes. "I swear, I wasn't... I wasn't thinking of-" he shook his head. Then he took a deep breath and continued.

"After lunch she invited me to a sidewalk sale - CDs. I helped her pick out a couple of CDs and she said she had bought a new stereo, and it was one I was thinking of buying for you, and she asked if I wanted to hear the sound quality, so I went to her place... and..." he trailed off, then looked away.

"What was her name?"

"JC."

"And you just met her that day?"

He nodded slowly.

"You... you slept with a woman you'd just met that day, you... you threw our marriage aside just like that?" she asked, her voice impassive.

He started to shake his head, then stopped, biting his lip. Nodded slowly.

"Why?" He shook his head helplessly. "You told me you went to see Jack McCoy that day. You told me you were working with him."

He shook his head again.

"That was in early summer."

"May 30th"

Trust Rey to know the exact date, Deborah thought numbly. It was normally an endearing trait. Not right now. "It's been almost five months."

He nodded.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I was going to tell you when I came home. But Lennie and Claire Kincaid were in that accident. I ended up going to the hospital and by the time I came back it was early morning, I couldn't wake you up, and then the girls were up and I couldn't tell you."

"Why didn't you tell me that night?"

"I went to see Father Morelli. I told you I saw him because I was upset about Lennie getting drunk, but I actually went to see him to confess."

"And he told you not to tell me."

He nodded.

She sat back.

"Deborah?"

She stood, went to the window, stared out at their cold, dark back yard. Five months, she'd been living a lie. The last five months of her life were a lie, and she was completely numb.

Five months, she'd been living with, sleeping with, an adulterer. A cheater and a liar. She'd been her mother, all over again, what she swore she would never be, and he'd been his father and hers, all over again, what he swore he would never be. What she had wholeheartedly believed he could never be.

He'd broken that promise. He'd broken his marriage vows. He wasn't who she thought he was.

Who was he? She turned and looked at him, and he dropped his gaze. How could he have lied to her? How could he have made love to her after being with another woman? How could she mean that little to him? How could their life together mean so little to him? How could their children mean so little to him?

Their children. Her children. She had carried them, given birth to them, and brought them into a home where the betrayals of her own childhood had no place. She had believed that their father would never cheat, never lie, never betray them as her own had.

Lies.

She turned around again, closed her eyes. Leaned her forehead against the window for a long moment.

"Deborah?"

She shook her head.

This wasn't like any fight they had ever had. While they didn't fight often and almost never in front of the children, they both had quick tempers and when they actually fought, it was high-volume and intense. This was deeply frightening, to both of them, because of its very stillness and quietness.

"Deborah."

She didn't turn.

"Please, say something." She'd never heard his voice sound like this. Low, quiet, ashamed... afraid.

She caught her breath, appalled at herself for feeling an impulse to comfort him. To take away the fear in his voice.

No. She didn't know what she was supposed to feel, but concern for him shouldn't be any part of it. She turned and left the room.

"Where are you going?"

"Out for a drive," she said brusquely, grabbing her jacket and car keys. He watched her go, the slam of the front door echoing through him.

All the lies of the last five months, finally out. Like a festering wound on their marriage, lanced and draining, but aching and raw. A wound that is lanced can heal, but it leaves an ugly scar. And if the wound is deep enough, if there's enough poison inside, it can kill.

Oh God. He slowly went up the stairs, to their elder daughters' bedroom. Looked in on them, sleeping peacefully, blissfully unaware of what had just happened.

Oh God. He covered his face with his hands, overwhelmed. He'd finally done it. He had finally confessed to her the worst thing he had ever done, the worst transgression he had ever committed against another human being. And now what? Five minutes ago she had been in his arms and he had been filled with her presence. Now, she might as well have been on the dark side of the moon. She was out there, driving around, and he had no idea what was going on inside her. No idea what she was going to do when she got back. No idea how it would affect the two little girls he was gazing at.

God forgive me, he prayed. I couldn't, I couldn't do anything else. I couldn't live like this any more. Morelli may have been right about wives in general, that they shouldn't be told. But he was wrong about Deborah. She couldn't have made it clearer, that she would want to know, no matter what. How could I hear that and still lie to her?

He stared at his daughters' sleeping forms. Serena sighed and turned over in her sleep, chubby little hands clutched around her favourite doll.

I did the right thing, he told himself. I did the right thing. And they'll be OK. Please God, they'll be OK. Better off than if I continued to lie to their mother. Besides, what's the worst thing that could happen? Yes, she just said she would probably leave me if I cheated on her, but that was before I actually told her I did. It was just a theoretical discussion, and not even a serious one. She wouldn't really leave... would she?

Please, God, let her be able to forgive me. I don't care if she yells and screams at me, I deserve it, but please, whatever happens, please let her forgive me in the end. Don't let her walk out on me. Don't let our children be hurt by this. Whatever the punishment is, please, let me be the one to bear it. He sat on Olivia's bed, stroked her hair, his heart beating fast with fear.

Don't let them be hurt by this. They don't deserve to be. Please don't let my children be hurt by my sin.

===

Outside, Deborah drove through the quiet, winding dark suburban streets of their neighbourhood. She stopped the car in a random parking lot, turned it off. Sat thinking while it slowly cooled, oblivious to the passing of time until her breath came out in puffs of steam. Still numb, but slowly, slowly piecing together her emotions and attaching each one to what he had done.

He had forgotten her. She was hurt.

He had slept with another woman. She was furious.

He had kept this from her for five months. She was humiliated.

He wasn't who she thought he was. She was afraid, suddenly unsure of everything.

He didn't love her, couldn't love her if he could do this to her. She was devastated.

He had put their children in the same position she had been in as a child, same position he had been in as a child. She hated him.

She hated him, and she had to get away from him. Had to get their children away from him. Her children.

She restarted the car and drove back to the house.

===

She entered the house and walked past Rey, who had come downstairs upon hearing their car in the driveway. Headed for the stairs.

"Deborah?"

"Don't come near me."

"Where are you going?"

"My mother's house."

He slowly followed her up the stairs and into their bedroom. "For how long?"

She didn't answer him.

"Please don't do this."

She whipped around and glared at him, and he flinched and stepped back. No emotion for him other than loathing. He'd seen her angry at him, irritated, annoyed, even disappointed a few times, but never this.

"What about the girls?"

"I'm taking them with me."

"Hon, they're asleep-"

"Don't call me that. So they're asleep, they can wake up." She started to put clothing into a suitcase.

"Please. Please don't."

"Get away from me."

He covered his eyes with his hand for a moment, deep tremors starting to shake him.

"Please." He couldn't seem to think of anything else to say. He'd said everything he could, and this was her answer. She didn't want to talk, and he didn't know what to say other than don't go. "How long are you gonna be gone?"

"Until you're out of the house." He felt a stab of pain. Her voice held nothing for him except impersonal distaste.

"You want me out?" She nodded, not looking at him. He swallowed. "Look... Deborah... if you just want me gone... I'll go. I-I'll pack a suitcase, go to a hotel or something. You don't need to wake up the kids-"

"No. I want you gone. I want your clothes gone, I want your books gone, I want you out of this house."

Excising him like a cancer from her life. Just like that.

"You want me to move out."

"Yes."

"Deborah, please don't do this. Please talk to me."

"There's nothing to talk about. You broke your vows. You lied to me. For five months. There's nothing to talk about. I have nothing to say to you."

He felt his world dissolving, disappearing. This was exactly what she had said she would do. What he should have known she would do if he ever cheated on her, given her childhood. Given his childhood, too. "So that's it?"

"That's it."

"Our marriage, our life together - it's over?" he heard the shaking in his voice, powerless to stop it. If she heard it, she gave no sign.

"I'd say so."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. It was over when you broke your vows. Excuse me," she went past him with another suitcase, and quietly went into Olivia and Serena's room. She took clothing for them out of the drawers and put it into the suitcase, then brought it out to the hallway as he watched helplessly, feeling everything ending.

"What are you gonna tell them?" he asked quietly.

"Why should I have to tell them? Why don't you?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"Why don't you make something up? You seem to be good at that."

He breathed out, acknowledging that he probably deserved that. He followed her to the front door.

"Please. Talk to me for just a few minutes."

"No."

"Just five minutes, Deborah! Christ, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm not asking you to forgive me or even agree to work things out. I'm asking for five goddamn minutes of your precious time and I don't think that's too much to ask after six years of marriage, no matter what I've done!!"

"Fine."

She checked her watch and faced him, face blank, black eyes flat and cold. He paused, not sure what he wanted to say to her, knowing she'd give him no more than five minutes. "I want to see the girls. You don't have to talk to me, but I want to see them."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"I'm their father. I don't want you to - I don't want you to cut me off from them."

"They deserve better than you as a father," her voice was full of contempt. He breathed out, trying to keep calm.

"Let me see them."

"No."

"Then let me call them, for god's sake! At least let me call them! You can't - you can't just yank them away with no warning, it's not fair to them. Think of them for one damn minute."

"You should have thought of them five months ago." It felt like a slap. A slap that he deserved. He clenched his fists.

"I didn't. I didn't think of anybody but myself that day. Don't add to what I did and hurt them more than they have to be hurt."

"Fine. You can call them," she allowed grudgingly, tapping her foot impatiently, checking her watch. He sighed with relief.

"When?" he asked.

"I'll give you a call tomorrow."

OK. He nodded, trying to think of what else to say.

Suddenly his pager went off. She felt slight surprise as he turned it off without even looking to see who was paging him. To her knowledge he had never done that. No matter what was going on at home, when he was on call as soon as the pager went off he was in work mode. Now he'd turned it off like it was a nuisance, barely worth acknowledging.

Deborah felt a flicker of sympathy for him, quickly quashed it. What a pathetic thing to hold on to, she told herself. So what? For once, for today, right now, their conversation about his complete betrayal of her and their children held his interest more than a page concerning a person who was dead and wouldn't get any deader if he delayed answering for half an hour. Good for him. It shouldn't make any difference to her. It shouldn't make her think that maybe she and the children did mean something to him after all. If they had meant anything, he wouldn't have done what he did in the first place.

He cleared his throat. "What do you want me to tell them now?"

"Tell them we're going to see Grandma."

"They're gonna want to know why right now, in the middle of the night."

"Make something up."

"I - I can't."

"Haven't you had enough practice at this?" Deborah said bitterly. She thought for a moment. "Tell them we're gonna give Grandma a surprise." That was true after all. She glanced at her watch. "Anything else?"

He shook his head. She stepped past him and started to take the suitcases to the car. "Do you want me to get the girls?" he asked. She nodded on her way out.

===

Rey tucked the blanket under Olivia's chin and kissed her forehead, smiling slightly as she murmured in her sleep. Olivia was an incredibly sound sleeper, and had woken up only enough to nod when he told her she was going to take a trip to Grandma's house. Isabel, used to being transferred around in her sleep, hadn't even stirred as he put her in her car seat. Serena had asked a couple of drowsy questions, but had docilely accepted what was going on and hadn't made a fuss when told where she was going. And now Deborah was in the car, impatiently waiting for him to finish saying goodbye.

He stroked Isabel's cheek, wishing he could wake her and say a proper goodbye, but knowing she'd probably scream for the whole three-hour trip to the Pequot Reservation in Connecticut if he did. He smiled at Serena and gave her a kiss.

"How come you're not coming, Daddy?" she asked sleepily.

"I have to stay and work, baby," he told her. "Be good for Mommy, OK?" She nodded solemnly. "Love you."

"Love you," she answered him. "See you when we come back." He nodded to her, got out of the car, and closed her door. He opened the front door next to Deborah.

"You'll give me a call when you get there?" he asked her. She didn't bother to look at him. "Just leave me a message so I'll know you made it OK." She nodded stiffly, grudgingly. There was a brief silence.

"Deborah..."

"Close the door, please, I have to back out," she said flatly. He swallowed hard, straightened up and closed her door. She backed the car out of the driveway.

He watched the car taking his family away, feeling lost.

Now what?

Well, get out of the freezing cold, for one thing. He wasn't dressed for this weather. He entered the house again, noticing that Isabel's favourite bear had been left behind. Damn. She was going to raise hell tomorrow when she found out.

He picked up the little bear and stared at its empty black button eyes, feeling completely unreal. Abruptly hoping that somehow he could wake up from this and discover that his wife hadn't just up and left in the middle of the night, taking his children out to the Rez for who knew how long. That his whole world hadn't just come crashing down.

Stood there simply feeling blank for a while until he remembered the pager going off. And the phone, which had begun to ring as he and Deborah had put the girls in the car. She'd turned off the ringer impatiently and he hadn't given it another thought.

He found his pager, turned it on. Damn. Three pages. He picked up the phone to call the dispatcher back, grateful for the distraction.

===

_3:10 am_

Lennie yawned as he finished up with the crime scene. Dead girl at the bottom of Brooklyn Bridge - probably a jumper, but they still had to investigate. He rubbed his eyes tiredly. This was the nuisance of being on call. You so often got woken up in the dead of night for nothing. He didn't mind so much when he had to get up and catch an actual murder, but being dragged from a very pleasant dream for a damn jumper was damn annoying.

Besides, this was supposed to be Rey's night for first call, not his. He was only supposed to come if Rey assessed the situation and decided he needed help. Instead he'd been woken up by the dispatcher telling him she couldn't reach Rey, and would he take first call.

Where the hell was Rey? Usually Rey was quick to get to a night-scene, even though he lived out in the suburbs. Rey still hadn't realized that their vics _really_ weren't going to go anywhere if they took the time to wake up properly before getting to the scene. Oh to be that young and enthusiastic again.

Lennie skimmed over his notes so far. He hadn't expected the body site to give him much, but they needed all the info they could get. See if anybody had seen anything, look at angles of trajectory, etc. etc. No point looking too closely at the vic - the ME would tell them if there was anything off about the body. Thank god, because this one had landed face-down. Yech.

Well, nothing else left to do here, now he needed go up to the top of the Bridge.

===

At the top of the Bridge, Rey spoke to the Crime Scene Unit officers. He'd finally arrived, an hour late, and found that Lennie had already been called and was down at the bottom with the body. Judging that there probably wouldn't be much for him to see down there, Rey stayed where he was, nodding as he wrote everything down and tried to take in the scene. Mind on the job, he reminded himself. Forget home, forget all of that. Not that difficult to do, since what had just happened at home was so unreal that it wasn't difficult to put it out of his mind. It hadn't really sunk in. And a crime scene wasn't the place to let it sink in.

"What happened to you?" Lennie asked as he and Profaci got out of a car.

"Hey, sorry I'm late, grabbed a ride," Rey launched into a description of what he'd learned so far. The vic's car, presumably, left open, nobody around, cars zipping by. An unidentified 911 call, the girl's ID. Normal. Everyday. No different from any of the hundreds of other crime scenes he'd worked, except it was damn cold and his wife had just walked out on him.

He held out the vic's ID. Karen Whatney of Borough Park. "Twenty-eight years old, nice looking girl."

"Not any more," Lennie commented.

"Detectives!" called out a uni. Officer Wheeler. "We got a woman's blouse over here." He brought it over.

Profaci took the blouse, then handed it to Rey. "So she's stoned on something, she runs her car into the guard rail, peels off her shirt, and jumps." Rey peered closely at the blouse.

"You sign off on that and we can all go back in," said Wheeler.

"Left sleeve is ripped. There's three buttons missing," Rey noticed. "She didn't take this off, somebody took it off for her."

"911 call said she jumped," Wheeler pointed out.

"Maybe this somebody also helped her off the Bridge," Rey said scornfully, and walked off.

"Break out your thermals, Wheeler, we're not going any place," he heard Lennie say to the uni. '911 call said she jumped.' Idiot. Oh, well, why don't we just let 911 do our job for us?

===

_9:30 am_

Next morning, they were at the mother's house. This part of the job was always hard, but necessary.

The mother, of course, was devastated, didn't want to believe it was her daughter at the bottom of the Bridge, didn't want to believe it was suicide. Who would want to believe somebody they loved had committed suicide? Even if, as in Karen Whatney's case, life hadn't exactly been going well at the time of her death? Whatney's boyfriend had left her, she had no job and no money, but her mother maintained that things hadn't been bad enough for her to take her own life.

Rey was inclined to agree with her. Something weird had definitely happened to the girl. You're suicidal and jump off a bridge, you're not going to tear your shirt off first. She could have been whacked out enough to rip off her own shirt, but... you rip off your own shirt in a frenzy, you're going to tear it along the middle. Not along the sleeve.

Still, suicide seemed likely. Shirt aside, this might be a nothing case.

Rey found himself hoping it wasn't. Hoping it was as messy and complex as possible. Just to have something to do, something to think about. A way to just spend the next few days working eighteen-hour days, only stopping to sleep. Deborah always hated it when he did that, but that didn't exactly matter right now.

He took a quick breath. It kept hitting him, this thing. He'd managed to not think about it much so far - worked at the crime scene until about five in the morning, grabbed a couple hours of sleep at the precinct, and continued on, focusing on the job and not on the fact that nothing was right. But when he least expected it, there was that sharp pain, that reminder that there wasn't a house full of kids waiting for him back home, that his cozy little world was simply not there.

And no idea of what was going to happen next, that was the terrifying part. He'd try to head off the negative feelings by pretending that Deborah was just at her parents' for a few days, but it wasn't that easy to fool himself, to stop worrying about what was going to happen next. The future seemed like a big gaping maw of uncertainty, but he did know one thing. Deborah wasn't just going to come back in a couple of days with a bunch of stories about her parents and the Rez, a cheery, "Give Daddy a hug and kiss!" for the girls, and a soft, "I missed you," for him.

Whatever. Right now is not about you, he reminded himself, it's about the vic. Thank God. Because you can do something about her. He brought his attention back to Karen Whatney's mother.

===

"Hey, no job, no boyfriend, I'd be singing duets with Billie Holliday," Lennie reflected as they walked back to their car after finishing with Mrs. Whatney. Didn't seem quite right, but the mother had probably been unaware of how badly her daughter was doing.

"Yeah, I don't buy it. I wanna talk to her friends."

"Sure," Lennie agreed. The mother had said Whatney had probably gone out with one of her friends yesterday. That might yield a few clues. "So last night where was everybody? One of your kids have a medical emergency?"

"Nah, Deborah took the kids to her parents' for a few days," Rey said casually, taking out his notebook.

"Just like that?"

_Our marriage, our life together, it's over? Just like that?_

"Yeah, just like that," Rey said, more bitterly than he meant to. He looked at his notebook. "So uh, girlfriend works on the West Side?"

Lennie opened the car door, a little puzzled. Wait a minute. That didn't make sense. Rey had been paged in the middle of the night. Why would Deborah taking the kids to her parents' place have anything to do with him not showing up at a crime scene in the middle of the night?

Besides, Rey hadn't said anything about his family going out of town. In fact, Lennie recalled him saying something about taking the kids to some event this week. And now they were gone?

Lennie gazed at him for a moment, sensing something slightly off, then mentally shrugged and got into the car. West Side. Right.

===

_11:56 pm_

Rey paid the cabbie and got out. Back home.

The day had been pretty much a complete waste of time, following leads that had gone nowhere. Whatney's friend had said that Whatney had been hoping to get some money from her former employer, which seemed a little strange, so they'd gone to see him. Hoping to find something, maybe a connection, some kind of motive - bad feelings over her being fired, an affair, blackmail, something... no dice. The employer, a kindly-looking older man, hadn't fired her, he'd just lost his factory to a fire. And no, no affair either - the guy was a widower. As to why she thought she was getting money from him, well, it turned out she'd worked for him since she was a kid.

Waste of time.

They still didn't even know that it wasn't a suicide. Except for the ripped blouse, it looked like a suicide, maybe drug-induced. Rey had almost been willing to concede defeat on the issue when the ME said she had bruises on her left arm that weren't due to the fall and the tox report came back negative except for Midol.

"Well, that gives a motive," Lennie had quipped.

"She jumped because it was her time of the month?" Van Buren had asked, amused. "I hope you come up with a better reason before you go home to your cave tonight."

They hadn't. Well, tomorrow was another day. They'd traced the 911 caller and Rey had been ready to go see him right away, but Lennie had pleaded exhaustion and gone home to bed. Rey had stayed at the precinct, reluctant to go home, catching up on paperwork from other cases until the words got too blurred to read.

They'd go see the 911 caller tomorrow. They'd give the Whatney case one more day, then call it a suicide and move on to cases where the cause of the death wasn't as obvious as a flying leap off a bridge with a vague 'something's-not-right' of a ripped blouse and bruised arm.

Rey entered his house, realizing that until that moment he'd been sort of hoping to find his family there. Which was ridiculous.

It was pretty easy to imagine that everything was still OK, as long as he was working. As long as he was thinking about motives and witnesses and clues. That world, the world of work, was intact. But then his other world... was this. An empty house.

Don't think. Just get something to eat and get ready for bed.

He went to the answering machine, its red light blinking steadily. Several messages.

"Detective Curtis, this is Dispatching. There is a possible homicide at the Brooklyn Bridge, please call to confirm." Three repetitions of the same message.

"We're in Connecticut," Deborah's voice, clipped, unemotional. "I'll call you at the precinct tomorrow at noon." Beep. End of messages.

Thanks, hon, he thought. Would it have been that big a strain for her to at least let the kids leave him a message too?

Apparently, it would have. He pushed down his irritation at her. After what he had done, he could hardly expect her to just pretend everything was fine. Sure, his mother used to do that as a way of life, and so did Deborah's, but they had both vowed they would never be their parents. Just because he'd ended up walking in his father's footsteps was no reason to expect Deborah to walk in her mother's.

He automatically ate, brushed his teeth, changed into a t-shirt and boxers, put aside his suit to take to the dry cleaners. Noticed a glint of gold on the dresser drawer as he hung his suit up on the bedroom doorknob.

Deborah's wedding ring. He felt a stab of alarm but took a deep breath and forced himself consider this reasonably.

It didn't mean anything. She was just angry. Deborah tended to get a little dramatic when she was really, really mad. Of course she hadn't missed the opportunity to make a symbolic statement, but she'd calm down. She would. And then they might be able to work this out.

He got into the bed and lay there, staring at the ceiling, trying not to think about Deborah's ring on the dresser drawer next to him instead of on her finger.

He turned over. Shit. This was awful. He was dead tired, but this was incredibly painful, lying alone in a bed that should have had Deborah in it. Going to bed without saying good night to his girls.

What were they doing? Where were they? Were they wondering what had happened? Or were they just doing their thing, happy to be at Grandma and Eric's house? Playing with their cousins, visiting the Pequot Rez?

He closed his eyes and told himself to go to sleep. He was too damn tired not to. And there was just no point in staying up, feeling bad. Sleep. Now.

He turned over again, finally feeling sleep overtaking him. Wasn't that ironic? He'd had a lot of trouble going to sleep in the last five months, often staying up worrying for hours, his stomach churning from the guilt of what he'd done, what he was continuing to do, lying to Deborah. Now, he was fine. He felt like crap and he'd probably destroyed his family, but he could sleep on demand.

Feeling vaguely bothered by that, he drifted off.

===

_Tuesday, October 17  
11:10 am_

Lennie glanced around. Nice spot. Very woodsy.

He and Rey had gone to speak to the caller from 911, only to find that, surprise surprise, the guy hadn't seen much. Other than a truck from the Daily News, some black guy in a maroon Volvo saying the girl had gone over the Bridge, and a lot of people watching the show.

Not willing to track down every maroon Volvo in the city, they'd checked out the Daily News. Tracked down the guy who'd been delivering the papers at that time, to find that he also hadn't seen a thing. Except for a truck from the Parks Department with a man and a woman in it, enjoying the show too.

That was New York for you - girl jumped off the Bridge to her death and nobody saw anything. Nobody willing to admit to it, anyway. Still, they'd shlepped over to the Parks Department, found that a guy called Marsh had brought his truck back late that night. But the funny thing was, Marsh had told the guy who ran the motor pool that he'd been stuck in the mud on Randall's Island. Not on the Bridge.

Lennie and Rey had glanced at each other, detective instincts catching something weird. Nobody else had a Parks truck out that night. It had to be this guy. He obviously hadn't done anything to Whatney or the newspaper guy would've said so. So why would he lie about being on Randall's Island?

So they tracked Marsh down to his current worksite and asked him.

"Monday night. Nope... nothin' special jumps out."

"The guy who runs your motor pool said you brought your truck back three hours late," said Lennie. "And you told him you were stuck in the mud on Randall's Island?"

"Uh, yeah, that's right. That was a bitch."

Lennie hazarded a guess. "You married, Mr. Marsh?"

"Yeah," said Marsh, a little surprised at the non-sequitur.

"And you were at Randall's Island all by yourself?" Lennie asked skeptically.

"No. There was me and an owl."

"You know, that's funny," said Rey, "because somebody said they saw you on the Brooklyn Bridge with a female human passenger right around the same time."

"I wasn't on the Bridge. I was by myself."

"You mean, you weren't with your wife?" Rey needled him, ignoring the twist in his gut as the guy looked away uncomfortably. Son of a bitch, he thought. Running around on his wife, except this guy was apparently lucky enough that his wife didn't know about it. Hadn't walked out on him - yet. And he was gonna keep his dirty little secret, even if it meant lying to the police. Worthless piece of crap.

Lennie suppressed an impatient sigh. Some day, and Lennie really hoped it would be before he retired, Rey would get it through his head that not every guy who committed a minor peccadillo deserved that kind of attitude. Suspects, sure. You rattle'em by throwing all their dirty laundry in their face, see if a confession about an actual crime falls out. But not witnesses. You don't go after a witness like he's got a big scarlet A on his forehead and you're the Puritan Inquisition because that just makes him clam up. Lennie stepped in, trying to salvage the situation.

"Hey, we don't need to pry into your private business, Mr. Marsh. What we do need to know is what you saw on the Bridge."

"I was on Randall's Island," Marsh repeated stubbornly. "I don't have anything more to say about it." He got into his truck.

"Asshole," muttered Rey as the guy drove off. Lennie grimaced at him.

"You think you coulda been a little more tactful?"

"What?"

"The guy's obviously got extra-curricular activities. Fine. He's also got information about this case. Which _we_ don't have now, thanks to you deciding you work for the Morality Police instead of Homicide."

Rey turned without a word and went back to the car, leaving behind a slightly off-balance Lennie.

What the hell was with Rey today? Lennie wondered as he got into the car. Moody, irritable, looking tired, and about as much fun as reading the Tax Code. Not that Rey was normally a barrel of laughs, but he had, over the year that Lennie had been working with him, at least started to unbend a tiny little bit. You couldn't tell from the last couple of days though - he seemed to be reaching for new heights of grim humourlessness.

===

_12:00 pm_

Rey picked up his phone at noon, motioning Lennie to go ahead into Van Buren's office.

"Curtis."

"Well, I'm calling."

He was at a loss for a moment. "How... how are you?"

"Fine. I said I would call so that you could talk to the girls."

"I - I can't right now, I'm at work-"

"I figured that. So pick a time when you won't be at work."

"Um - tonight at seven? Call my cell, though, I might not be at-"

"Fine. Goodb-"

"No wait! Don't hang up-"

"What?" she asked impatiently.

"Deborah, come on, don't be like this." There was a small sound of annoyance on the other end of the line, and Rey paused for a second. "What have you told them?" he asked quietly.

"What do you mean, what have I told them? I told them we're visiting their grandparents."

"I mean, what have you told them about what's going on?"

"Nothing."

"Well... how long are you gonna be at your parents?"

"Until you're out of the house."

"Deborah, come on, don't-"

"I didn't call so that we could talk about this. I called because you said you wanted to talk to the girls."

"I can't talk to them if I don't know how much you've told them. And if you want me outta the house, we better figure out some way to explain that to them. Because they're gonna notice it when they come home."

"You think so? You're gone most of the time anyway."

"Deborah, that's not fair-"

"I'm hanging up now-"

"What, you're gonna pretend I'm dead?"

"The thought has crossed my mind."

"Jesus, Deborah," he said in disgust. Silence on the other end of the line. He cleared his throat, made himself maintain a civil tone. He glanced around the squad room, reminding himself to stick to Spanish so that as few people as possible would overhear his end of the conversation. Not an easy thing to do, since he and Deborah, both raised bilingually, usually slipped from English to Spanish and back without even noticing in the course of a conversation. "So what do they think is going on?"

"What?"

"Have they asked how come I'm not there, how come I haven't called them?"

"I told them you were busy."

"And you're gonna keep saying that for how long?" More silence. "You don't think at least Olivia's smart enough to figure out something's wrong?"

"Fine. I'll let them know that their father cared more about a random piece of ass than he cared about us, and that's why Mommy and Daddy aren't married any more. Happy?"

Rey swallowed hard and rubbed his forehead, forcing himself to keep calm. "No, I don't think you need to go into detail-"

"Would you like me to make something up?"

"No, I'm not saying that, I'm just saying don't just tell them nothing. That's as bad as lying-"

"Don't you dare tell me not to lie! You of all people!"

"Deborah-"

"I'm hanging up. Now."

"No! No don't-" too late. Damn it. He slammed the phone down, knowing he was probably getting a few odd looks and battling the urge to hurl it across the squad room. That would raise a few eyebrows for sure.

Fuck. He was seized by an urge to scream with frustration, destroy something, beat on somebody. No, no, no. Take a deep breath, he told himself. She has every right to be upset. This is your doing, not hers. Maybe you can try to talk to her again tonight.

Now take another deep breath, push this down, and go back to work.

===

"Whoever was with him, it wasn't his grandmother," Van Buren commented in her office as Lennie told her about Marsh.

"Marsh was on the Bridge, all right, but proving it could cost him his job and his marriage," he said, looking out at the squad room, where Rey was on the phone. Looked like whatever was going on was pretty heavy. "What's with Rey?" he asked irritably.

"I don't know, he's your partner."

"Maybe you oughtta remind him of that. He doesn't say squat to me," Lennie stopped as the door opened and Rey came in.

"Everything OK?" Van Buren asked him.

"Yeah. Deborah says hi," Rey said casually. "So. Uh... what do you wanna do - put an ad in the newspaper? 'Witnesses wanted - flexible hours?'"

"The newspaper truck driver - he's on the Bridge same time every night?"

"Give or take," said Lennie.

"How many more are regulars like him?"

"We could throw up a roadblock and find out."

"And let's get the truck driver and Mr. Marsh in here," Van Buren suggested. She frowned slightly as her detectives left the office. Lennie was right, there was something going on with Rey today. He seemed tired and distracted. Probably one of his kids was sick or something, she thought as she picked up a report. It was always hard to balance family and the job.

"So, you gonna take off and get some sleep before gathering up the night owls tonight?" Lennie asked as they got back to their desks.

"Nah, I'm gonna finish this file for the Tate case."

"Rey, go home, take a nap," Lennie said absently as he picked up his messages. "We're gonna be up all night and you look like crap." Rey frowned and started to answer, but Lennie interrupted. "Oh - hold on," he read over one of his messages again.

"What?"

"The Mother in Law From Hell. Jamie says they've set up the hit man sting." One of their current cases involved the attempted murder of a young man, and the trail had led them to his wife's former mother in law. Turned out she'd put a hit on the guy. They had figured she would try again, tracked down the guy who had connected her to the first hit man, and made him set a trap for her. It seemed she'd decided to walk into it.

"Good."

"Yeah, I get to be a hit man," Lennie said enthusiastically. Rey smiled. "Oh - never mind, it's for this afternoon. I'll let Jamie know we better reschedule," Lennie picked up the phone.

"Why?"

Lennie sighed. "Rey, we already know she's guilty. One more day isn't gonna make a difference in this case. The Whatney case, we haven't figured out yet."

"We got nothing but dead ends on Whatney. The only thing left to try is the roadblock, which won't be till 2am."

"Yeah, and I wanna take a break before then."

"I don't."

"What are you, the Energizer Bunny? We don't get brownie points for closing this one day early."

"I want the overtime."

"All right, fine," Lennie gave in good-naturedly and started to dial Jamie's number. "What, your wife's fashion taste finally getting too much for your detective's salary?"

"She's a Pequot, remember?" Rey answered, keeping his voice casual. "My salary's not what keeps her in designer clothes."

"Lucky you. You ever get a divorce, she'll be paying you alimony," Lennie chuckled.

===

_7:10 pm_

This was unreal, Rey thought later that night as he listened to Olivia excitedly tell him all about the Rez. He and Lennie had arrested the Mother In Law From Hell and her first hit man, and arrived at the precinct just in time for him to duck into an empty interrogation room and answer his cell phone precisely at 7:00 pm. He leaned against the wall wearily.

It was so easy to think that this was just a regular Rez visit for the girls. Forgetting the context as he listened to Olivia's stories about a beautiful indoor pool, and Grandma and Eric's house and Eric's clarinet. And cousin Frankie, who had challenged her to climb up a tree. Which she would have, except the tree trunk was too cold. He nodded as he listened, saying all the appropriate things. Not that Olivia would have noticed if he hadn't said a word - when she got going she could talk for hours with no input from anybody else.

"Rey," Lennie said with relief, finally finding Rey in an empty IR after searching for him all over the precinct. Damn it, of all times for his partner to pull a disappearing act. "What the hell are you doing? We need to finish up the arrest report."

Rey waved him off. "Yeah?" he spoke into the phone. "And then what happened?"

"Rey!" Lennie repeated. "Jamie needs the report. Now!"

Go away, Rey mouthed, turning his back to Lennie. Oh for God's sake, thought Lennie. He grabbed Rey's arm and Rey whipped around, shoving him back. Lennie felt a flicker of alarm along with annoyance as he stumbled back slightly.

"Sweetie, hang on for just a sec - Livie, hang on. Olivia!" Rey said firmly. "Sweetness, I have to talk to somebody for a sec, OK? I'll be right back." He paused. "No, don't - don't give the phone to Mommy, I'll be right back. Don't forget you were telling me about Frankie and the tree, OK?" He turned back to Lennie, who was staring at him in puzzlement and considerable irritation.

"What the hell was that?" Lennie asked. Rey glared at him.

"What the hell was what?! I'm on the god damn phone!"

"Yeah, with your kid. Tell her you'll call her back, we need to wrap up this case-"

"Back off!" Rey hissed, eyes glittering with anger and covering the cell phone so that Olivia wouldn't hear. "Since when do you need me to hold your hand through an arrest report?! Get out or I swear-"

"All right, all right," Lennie cut him off, profoundly annoyed, but also bewildered as hell. Rey was not only getting on his nerves, he was starting to worry him. "Go back to your phone call," he muttered under his breath as he left, startled as Rey slammed the door shut behind him. He turned and stared at the door for a moment, then mentally shrugged and went to write the arrest report.

Rey took a quick breath and switched mental gears. Forcing all irritation at Lennie, at Deborah, at himself, at this whole situation, out of his voice as he came back to Olivia.

"OK, sweetie, I'm back. Sorry about that. You were telling me about the tree?"

"Oh yeah Daddy it was way cool and I coulda done it but it was too cold. You know how you taught me to find the toeholds when I'm climbing? Frankie said I couldn't do it but I said you showed me how and when it's not so cold I'll show him."

Rey chuckled, remembering the day he'd taught Olivia to climb the small tree in their backyard. Remembering Deborah rolling her eyes and saying he was going to get them both killed, then taking Serena and Isabel out to a friend's house so that Serena wouldn't be tempted to try climbing too. He brought his attention back to Olivia.

"... you gonna come too?"

"What, sweetie?"

"You gonna come too, when we visit the Casino? 'Cause I miss you Daddy."

"Olivia, it's Serena's turn," Rey heard Deborah saying sternly.

"Bye bye Daddy gotta go," Olivia said breathlessly, getting off the phone before he could answer. He made himself greet Serena cheerfully as she began talking rapidly, plunging into a story right in the middle without saying hello.

His thoughts wandered despite himself as he listened to her babble. Was this all there was going to be to fatherhood from now on? Small snapshots of his children's lives? Was this what Deborah wanted? Phone calls to keep the kids from being too disoriented by his sudden disappearance, tapering away as they got used to his absence and stopped asking about him, until finally he was gone from their lives as if he'd never existed?

No, get a grip, he told himself impatiently. Don't think in worst-case scenarios. That may be what she wants right now, but it's only been two days so of course she's still pissed off.

They're just at the Rez for a few days. You'll see them when they get back.

You will.

He firmly brought his attention back to Serena.

===

**Author's notes:**

Spoilers for Legacy, Menace, Barter, and the LA Trilogy (D-Girl, Turnaround, Showtime), Matrimony, Working Mom, and Double Down.

For people as obsessive as me: people who read the date cards on the show may notice that the dates here are wrong, for the scenes from the show that are in the story. On the date cards, Menace happened from November 16 to January 19, and Barter happened from December 5 to February 5. I moved Menace and Barter back by a month, and may move Matrimony around a bit since some of the days when they were investigating that case in New York, they were also investigation the LA Trilogy case in LA. I like Lennie and Rey too much to give them the kind of jet-lag they'd suffer if they did that.

Other than the date cards, everything that's from a scene on the show is exactly the same - dialogue canon, thought processes not. Except that Mr. Marsh actually said "Wednesday night" in the original, not Monday, but the day/dates had to change since I moved Menace back.


	2. Counseling

**CHAPTER 2: COUNSELING**

_Wednesday, October 18_  
_2:21 am_

The roadblock had netted three people who were on the Brooklyn Bridge the night Whatney jumped: an anesthesiologist, Dr. Shanfsky; the owner of the maroon Volvo, Mr. Styles; and the maitre d' of a restaurant. They joined Marsh and the Daily News truck driver in an interrogation room.

Rey rubbed his eyes, exhausted. He gazed at their roomful of non-witnesses, unable to focus on the job. Thinking instead of Olivia trying to climb a frozen tree; Serena getting in trouble with Deborah's stepfather Eric for putting marbles into his clarinet; Isabel lisping something almost incomprehensible about a new stuffed bear.

And Deborah's cold voice letting him know that the phone call was over at precisely 7:30 pm. No room for argument - the girls had to take a bath. Asking him only whether he'd moved out yet and hanging up immediately upon his negative answer.

He forced his attention back to their witnesses. To Marsh, still protesting that he hadn't even been on the Bridge that night. All of them insisting they hadn't seen a thing.

"What is it, Mr. Styles, are you scared or ashamed you didn't do anything?" Van Buren asked him. "As you can see, you're not the only one."

"What about you? What did you see?" Lennie asked the maitre d'.

"Well, by the time I got there it was over, everyone was gone."

"Look, I have a busy schedule tomorrow," said Dr. Shanfsky importantly. "If you don't let me leave, the Deputy Mayor is going to hear about it."

"What about you Romeo?" Rey asked Marsh. "You had ringside seats." Lennie suppressed a grimace. Romeo. Way to go, Rey. That'll make him talk for sure.

"I was not there, I told you that."

"He was there, in a green truck. I recognize him," said the truck driver.

"I'm sorry, but you're wrong."

"He had a Spanish girl in the seat next to him."

"A Spanish girl?" Rey repeated. Well, well, the mystery woman had an ethnic identity at least.

"Back off, he doesn't know what he's talking about," Marsh insisted, glaring at the truck driver. Son of a bitch, Rey thought. Lying, cowardly son of a bitch. Keeping up his fiction of decent faithful married man, no matter what.

"Your wife's home cooking not good enough these days?" Rey said jovially, feeling a slow burn of anger at Marsh. "You know, maybe we oughtta break the news to her. In fact I think I got your home number right here." He flipped open his notebook.

"What are you doing?" Marsh asked, alarmed.

"718 area, right?" Rey started to punch in the number. Hey, why not? Either Marsh would talk and they'd finally get somewhere on this case, or he wouldn't and his wife would learn some things she oughtta know about her husband. After all, why should this miserable bastard get to have his cake and eat it too? What the hell, you play around, you live with the consequences.

_Have you moved out yet?_

_Deborah, I've been working, I haven't had a chance to-_

"Hey!" Marsh protested.

"I bet your girlfriend could teach your wife some hot new dishes."

"He can't do this," Marsh looked at Lennie and Van Buren for help.

"Rey-" Lennie began.

"It's ringing," Rey informed Marsh.

"Gimme that-" Marsh grabbed the phone out of his hand. Rey's temper snapped and he shoved back furiously, grabbing Marsh and slamming him against the wall and getting in his face as the other witnesses started in alarm.

"You better start talking or I swear I'm gonna put your name out to the papers! Everyone will know what kind of lowlife coward you are-"

"Rey-" Lennie called out warningly.

"-how you don't have the decency or the guts to be a witness for that girl!!"

"Rey!" Lennie grabbed Rey's shoulder, kicking himself for letting Rey go this far. "Let him go." Marsh was staring at Rey, frightened and resentful. "Come on. Come on, come on." He pulled Rey off the guy, propelling him out of the IR.

"What the hell's the matter with you?" Lennie asked angrily as soon as the door closed.

"You think I'm just gonna stand by and let these people lie to us?"

"That's not what this is about."

"Oh it's not? What's it about, then?" Rey challenged.

"You tell me," Lennie said quietly. They stared at each other for a long moment.

Come on, Rey, Lennie thought, setting aside his irritation and trying to project understanding instead. Whatever the hell is eating you, at least let me know what it is. Let me know why my partner's suddenly gone off the deep end so I can figure out what to do about it.

Rey stared at Lennie's unyielding expression. No, he thought. If he said it out loud, then that was it, it was real. No use pretending any more.

Like pretending was getting him anywhere.

He swallowed hard, looked away, trying to find the words.

"She left me, Lennie. She took the kids and split, she wants me outta the house."

Lennie let out his breath. He didn't know what he'd expected, but this hadn't been it. It did explain Rey's bizarre behaviour though. "Why? What happened?"

Rey looked down and there was another long silence as he searched for the words. "I broke my vows. This girl, in the Park - just a one-time thing..."

Lennie shook his head. Okay, yeah, that was bad. "How'd Deborah find out?"

"I told her."

Lennie nodded. Typical. Only Rey would do something that stupid, that insane, that... predictable, if you knew anything about him at all. "Your second mistake," he commented.

Rey didn't answer that. "You know, my old man used to chase women all the time and I swore I'd never be like him, but..."

Lennie put his hand on Rey's shoulder comfortingly. No, let's not go into self-recrimination now. Obviously Rey was feeling like crap, but this wasn't the time to go into a life history. "Listen. Why don't you bag it for tonight, huh?" he said gently.

"No, no, just... just gimme a coupla minutes." Lennie studied him for a minute, wondering whether Rey would be able to hold it together back in there. Finally nodded and headed back for the IR. He turned around before going back in.

"Hey. When you come back in there, you put that temper of yours in your pocket. You got that?" Rey nodded contritely.

Take a deep breath, Rey told himself as the door closed behind Lennie. Take a deep breath and get a grip. You're at work, you need to keep control, and you can do it. Make the most of it, since you sure as hell can't control anything else right now.

He cleared his throat, somewhat appalled at himself now that he was a little calmer. Not only had he almost beaten up a witness, he'd almost felt like breaking down when he'd finally told Lennie what was going on, fear and sorrow rising past his attempts to keep them at bay. That was unacceptable. He had better coping skills than that.

Think about that later. He looked into the interrogation room, where Van Buren and Lennie were still talking to the witnesses. Flipped the switch to hear what was going on.

"...being chased," Dr. Shanfsky was saying slowly. "By this very big man. A white man with dark hair."

"He ripped her shirt off. She was screaming," said the maitre d'. It seemed the wall of silence had finally broken.

"It looked like they were fighting," added Styles, and Rey opened the door and entered the room again. Lennie glanced back at him and he nodded slightly, indicating he was okay.

"Did she know this man?" Lennie turned back to their witnesses.

"I don't know," said Shanfsky. "She climbed over the side to get away. She was terrified."

"It all happened so fast, I, I couldn't believe it," Styles added. "She... just jumped."

"He didn't push her?" Lennie asked.

"No, sir. I think she jumped to get away from him. He was a lunatic."

"He looked right at us after she jumped," Shanfsky said. "I thought he was gonna come after me."

"Who saw him leave?" Rey asked.

"I did," answered the maitre d'. "He drove off in a green LTD. Uh... I dunno what year."

"Did anyone see how it started?" Van Buren asked them. There was a long silence.

Finally, from the corner, where he'd retreated after Rey had let him go, Marsh said slowly, "You don't need my friend's name, right?"

"No, we don't."

"They were in front of me. The VW and the LTD. She mighta cut him off, I'm not sure, but they banged fenders. The guy got out real ticked off."

"This was a traffic accident?" Van Buren asked in disbelief.

"Yeah. The guy was screaming at her to get out of her car. He got her door open and dragged her out by her hair. She ran away from him." He paused, looked down. "Past my truck."

"Used to be you cut somebody off, they flip you the bird," said the truck driver.

"Now they chase you, beat you up," said Styles.

"Why not, who's gonna stop 'em, you?" asked Rey. There was an uncomfortable silence, then Rey left the room in disgust.

===

"Detective Curtis, can I see you in my office?" Van Buren asked as their witnesses left the precinct.

Rey and Lennie exchanged a quick look that wasn't lost on Van Buren. Rey entered her office, Lennie right behind him. Van Buren narrowed her eyes at him - she hadn't asked him in, but he looked like he was staying. And Rey didn't look like he wanted Lennie to leave.

"What the hell was going on in there?" she began sternly, bracing for one of Rey's usual obnoxious assertions that whatever excess he had committed was just fine.

"I'm sorry, LT, I lost it in there. Won't happen again," he said quietly. She stared at him, momentarily taken aback.

"What happened?"

He shook his head, not meeting her eyes.

"Detective Curtis, I asked you a question."

"And I gave you an answer. I lost my temper and I apologize. It won't happen again."

"It better not. Witnesses have a nasty habit of getting upset when the police beat on them."

"It won't happen again, Lieutenant," Lennie repeated from the back of the office.

"All right. Out. Lennie, hang on a second," she said as they went to leave. She shut the door behind Rey. "Do you know what's going on?"

"Yeah," Lennie said, "And it's personal. He'll be OK. Can I go now?"

Van Buren nodded grudgingly and let him go, realizing there probably wasn't anything else she could do. Lennie had that 'closed-ranks' look to him. The same one Rey had worn a few times since Lennie fell off the wagon, come to think of it. The look that said that, whatever either of them thought about her as a person, when it came down to it she was their superior. Not somebody they would betray their partner to.

Lennie approached Rey's desk, seating himself at his own and taking out the notes from the interviews.

"So? I pass?" Rey asked quietly, head buried in his work. Lennie looked up.

"Her job to ask. She's just worried about you."

"I know. It's my own fault, anyway."

"Nobody's perfect, Rey," he said. No answer. Lennie regarded him steadily. "You sure you don't wanna go home?"

"To what?" Rey met his eyes bitterly. Lennie shook his head.

"She just left? End of story?"

"Yeah."

"What are you gonna do?"

"Move out, I guess."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that."

Lennie fiddled with his pen for a second, then abruptly stood up. "Come on. Let's get outta here for a minute." Rey automatically started to demur and Lennie gave him a stern glare brooking no argument. Rey sighed and got up, following Lennie into an empty IR.

"So when did this happen?"

"Two days ago."

"The day you were late to the crime scene on the Bridge?" Rey nodded. "She took off in the middle of the night?" Rey nodded again. "Why'd you tell her? Did she suspect?"

"No, she had no idea."

"So why... I mean, Rey... what the hell were you thinking?" Rey shrugged again. "Does anybody else know?"

"I dunno. Probably her parents."

"You haven't told anyone else?"

"Nah."

"You been carrying this around for the last two days, and nobody knows." How typical of Rey. Although, since this was Rey after all... "What about your priest?"

"Nah."

"Why not?"

"He's gonna kill me," Rey said, only half-joking. Lennie raised his eyebrows.

"What, you didn't confess-"

"Yeah, no, I confessed that I - that I broke my vows, but I wasn't supposed to tell Deborah."

"Why not?"

"He said it would do more harm than good. That I should just suck it up, lie to her to protect her and the kids." That sounded a hell of a lot more sensible than any of the priests Lennie had known when he was growing up. They hadn't been terribly practical. Rey was gazing down, fiddling with his wedding ring.

"He... he said honesty was for picture-perfect marriages, and I didn't have that any more," Rey said softly. Lennie winced. That probably hurt like hell, hearing that. For somebody as all-fired devoted to the Sacred Institution of Marriage and The Family as Rey, that had probably been devastating.

Of course, the guy was right. Of all the times for Rey to decide to rebel against the Almighty Church, he had to pick a time when the Almighty Church (or at least its local representative) was actually making sense. Again, typical. Common sense usually seemed completely lost on Rey, as far as Lennie could tell. At least when it came to balancing common sense with ethics. Well, now he was living the consequences of that kind of attitude. Poor, dumb kid.

"Rey, I'm sorry," he said. Rey cleared his throat and started to stand up, suddenly self-conscious.

"Look, I don't need to - I can handle this on my own-" Lennie put a hand on his shoulder, gently stopping him halfway up.

"Yeah, you're handling it so well you just almost beat the crap out of a _witness_, Rey. You're just lucky the guy's scared of his wife finding out about his little playmate, or he'd be suing you. And the City." Rey set his jaw resentfully, but sat back down. "You can't just walk around ignoring it or not dealing with it."

"What's to deal with? My wife left with the kids. She doesn't wanna talk to me. I'm supposed to move out. End of story."

"Yeah, well, it's not that simple. Welcome to the wonderful world of marital breakdown. It's a damn mess and you're gonna go nuts if you try to figure everything out on your own. Besides, you don't have to reinvent the wheel here. Millions of people have gone through it before you and there's all sorts of advice out there about what works and what doesn't. Divorce is a booming industry, you know." Lennie stopped, noting Rey's instinctive flinch at the D-word. "Hey, I'm not saying that's what's gonna happen," he backtracked hastily, not sounding terribly convincing even to himself. "I mean, maybe she's just mad right now, she'll calm down-"

"You don't know Deborah," Rey said softly, looking away. "She's... she doesn't calm down real well." He cleared his throat, crossing his arms and looking away from Lennie.

"Well... even if it comes to that, it's not that bad." Rey met Lennie's eyes in frank disbelief. "I mean - that call you got earlier, that was with your daughters, right? And I bet you had to beg for half an hour with them and Deborah set the time and Deborah ended the call." Rey pressed his lips together and looked away. "Well, there you go. She can't do that. This may come as news to you, but you got a few rights as a father, at least. She doesn't hold all the cards."

"I'm the one who-"

"Yeah, yeah, you're the bad guy 'cause you're the one who got some on the side. Just don't take the Catholic guilt too far, though, or she'll walk all over you. Take the kids, the house, every penny you own, and leave you with nothing. Here's a newsflash: she can't do that, no matter how many dips you took outside the company pool."

"She's not the enemy," Rey said quietly.

"Maybe not to you. But it sure sounds like you are, to her." Rey frowned. "Look, all I'm saying is, get some help. Get someone on your side. Like maybe talk to your priest, he sounds like he's got a brain. See if he can help out." Rey nodded. Lennie hesitated for a moment, then asked, "This fling... is that what happened the day Mickey Scott was executed?"

Rey sighed, rubbed his forehead. "Yeah."

Well, that was one mystery solved, anyway. He'd known for a long time that something had happened to Rey that day, but... damn it, when he'd tried to figure it out, this was one of the possibilities he'd considered and dismissed with an amused 'sure - when pigs fly.'

So, now he really had heard everything. Ultra-hyper-married Rey Curtis, stepping out on his wife. And how typical of him to word it in terms of breaking his vows - if there was anything that Rey was stubbornly anal about, it was truth and honesty and the solemnity of vows and oaths.

"So what happened?"

"What, you want a play-by-play? I let things go too far, that's all."

"And it was just the once?"

"Yeah."

"You ever see her again?"

"No! Of course not! God, why would I wanna-"

"Hey, hey, relax, I was just asking," Lennie said placatingly, suppressing an irate remark about how damn prickly Rey was being about this whole mess. Talking to Rey right now felt nerve racking and exhausting, like trying to balance a tray of glasses on a crowded subway. He'd had enough for tonight. They both had. Lennie looked at his watch. "It's damn late. Let's go finish up the interview notes and call it a night." Rey nodded and stood up. Lennie put a hand out as Rey opened the door.

"Listen. After we're done here, get some sleep, real sleep, and talk to somebody tomorrow. I don't care who. Me, or your priest, or a lawyer or a PBA counselor, I don't care." Rey pressed his lips together and crossed his arms and Lennie tried for a lighter tone. "I'm not saying this for you, Rey, I'm saying it for me. You've been a pain in the ass to work with the last two days. Gimme a break." Rey smiled slightly, and Lennie nodded to himself, glad to have defused some of the tension. He added gently, "I also don't want somebody who's sleep-deprived and repressing the hell outta one of the major traumas of life watching my back. Got it?"

"Yeah, got it," Rey nodded. He cleared his throat. "Uh... thanks," he said awkwardly. Lennie nodded and motioned him out of the room.

===

_Wednesday, October 18_  
_6:21 pm_

"I had to, Father," Rey defended himself as he finished explaining the situation to his priest the next day. Father Morelli was still staring at him dumbfounded, as he had from the beginning. There was an uncomfortable silence. "I'm sorry, Father," Rey finally said, looking away from the accusation in Morelli's eyes.

"Sorry won't give your children a stable home, will it?" Morelli finally spoke up quietly.

"No."

"How could you? What's the matter with you?"

Rey shook his head silently.

"We talked about this. Over and over again. I told you that they were more important than your guilty conscience, I told you that..." Morelli trailed off at Rey's closed expression. "You still think you did the right thing?"

"I don't know - I just know I couldn't have done anything else."

"Yes, you could have. You could have kept your mouth shut. You could have spared your wife and daughters what they're going through right now. How do you think your daughters will feel when they realize they've lost their father? How do you think Deborah feels about having her world pulled out from under her? She trusted you. She may never be able to trust you again."

"She trusted me... but she shouldn't have. It was based on a lie."

"What lie? That you cared about her enough to not hurt her unnecessarily?"

"That... that I was worth trusting," Rey said reluctantly. "And my daughters... I can't - I can't be a father, I can't be a role model, if I don't live up to what I believe in. I can't tell them they should always tell the truth and live with the consequences of their actions, if I don't do it myself."

"And you think you can be a role model now, when Deborah won't even let you see them?"

Rey shrugged. "At least I'm not living a lie. If I get to see them again, at least I can face them. I couldn't face them any more the way things were." Morelli tsk'd in disgust. "I couldn't," Rey repeated defensively.

Morelli was seized by a desire to say a few words he really shouldn't say in church. All their long conversations, soul-searching, prayers... he was so sure that he'd finally worked this out with Rey.

All right. Done was done. What mattered now was damage control.

"So. She's in Connecticut?"

"Yeah, at her parents' place."

"And she wants you to move out?" Rey nodded. "Has she said she's filing for divorce?"

"No. She hasn't said much, she won't talk to me. She... she left her wedding ring behind though." Morelli winced. That wasn't a very good sign, even if it had been done in the heat of the moment.

"All right." Morelli thought for a minute. "Since she's not talking to you, maybe she'll talk to me. Do you have her number?" Rey nodded, and Morelli picked up the phone.

"What are you gonna say to her?" Rey asked, his voice slightly alarmed.

"Ask her how she's doing. See if she wants to talk to me, at least. You've put her in a very painful position, I want to see if she's all right." Rey looked doubtful, but told him the number.

===

_11:35 pm_

Rey closed up the last box from the bedroom. Who would've guessed he had so much clothing?

He'd returned from Morelli's office relatively early, made himself a sandwich for dinner, and realized he had no wish to get ready for bed yet. And that he'd been putting off sorting through his things long enough. So now here he was, trying to identify what would qualify as 'his' in Deborah's eyes.

Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy to separate 'his' from 'hers' and 'theirs.' Not after nine years as a couple, six years married. The bedroom and the washroom were easy: clothing and personal toiletry items. But the rest of the house... he pondered a bookshelf in the study, mulling over his meeting with Morelli as he scanned through the titles.

He'd been asked to leave the room while Morelli talked to Deborah, like a child sent away while the grownups talked together, so he'd had a great deal of time to sit and think. Wondering what they were talking about, what Deborah was saying. Wondering if she'd spew some righteous anger at Morelli for telling him not to say anything. Part of him wishing she would, while at the same time chastising himself for being childish. None of this was Morelli's fault. Morelli had given the advice, but it had been his choice to follow it.

Forensics textbooks from college. No, Deborah probably wouldn't want those. He started putting them in the box.

He'd cooled his heels for a good hour outside Morelli's office, not even able to distract himself with the Whatney case, since that was still pretty much stalled. All they had to go on was the fact that Whatney's car had hit a green LTD, '86 or '87 model. Of which there were apparently 2,068 in the five boroughs. However, the CSU garage had also said that Whatney's car had two dents with green paint on it, so they figured that they must have bumped fenders before the Bridge. They'd spent the rest of the day knocking on doors between Henry Street, where Whatney dropped off her friend that night, and the Bridge. And they were probably going to do it again tomorrow.

A set of home-repair books, which Deborah had bought for him and only he had ever used. He started to put them into the box, then stopped. They were definitely his, but he certainly wouldn't need them. Deborah might, if anything broke down and he wasn't here to fix it. He put them back on the shelf. If Deborah resented his leaving them behind, she could always toss them out.

Morelli had finally emerged from his office to tell him that Deborah had said she would come back on Friday, provided he left their house. And that she was willing to set up an e-mail account so that they could communicate about practical matters involving their separation.

Separation.

OK, that didn't hurt as much as divorce. Dull ache, as opposed to sharp stab.

More textbooks. Economics and Computer Studies. The first had no interest for him any more, and the second was outdated. But they certainly weren't Deborah's. He added them to the box. Found a small toy purse that had been hidden behind the books - Serena's. She'd lost it months ago. She must have hidden it in the bookshelf during one of her endless games of one-child hide and seek.

Textbooks were easy, Rey thought as he started on the next shelf. But what about the classic used sci-fi novels they'd collected together when they were first going out? He didn't remember which ones he bought, which ones she bought. And which ones she liked better than he did. The Chrysalids? 1984? A whole set of Arthur C. Clarke?

"It may not even come to a formal separation," Morelli had said. "Give her time to cool down."

This is as cool as she gets, he'd thought. Deborah wasn't railing at him, wasn't screaming. Just freezing him out.

Rey decided to leave the sci-fi books where they were. Skipped over the next shelf, baby and pregnancy books. OK, difficult territory again. Religious books.

Morelli had said that he could use the church storage room for his things for now. He was also welcome to stay at the rectory - they had a room available for people undergoing family difficulties. Rey had looked down at the floor, embarrassed at the offer, and thanked Morelli, but said he preferred to go to a hotel.

"And you can see your children this weekend, after they come back." Rey had looked up, surprised. "Pick them up at noon, and bring them back home at five."

"She agreed to that?"

"Um... it took some persuading," Morelli admitted. "But she... she just wants what's best for them, same as you do."

Rey had nodded, swallowing back a jumble of emotions. He'd asked hesitantly, "How's she doing?"

"She's... she's very hurt, Rey. You have to understand that. She's very angry. And she has every right to be."

"I know."

"She's had her whole world turned upside down. You can't expect her to just cool down and let bygones be bygones, just like that."

"I know."

"How are you doing?" Morelli had asked just as hesitantly. Rey had shrugged, not sure what to say.

"Fine. Um, fine. I, I wasn't getting enough sleep for a couple days, but I slept in this morning, so... yeah, fine."

"This is a difficult thing to go through, you know."

"Yeah."

"If you need help, if you need to talk to anybody-"

"Yeah. I know," Rey interrupted quickly, not willing to go there. He wondered at himself a little. He'd confided in Morelli a lot in the last few months, unselfconsciously expressing all of his doubts and fears about lying to Deborah. Finding a measure of comfort in Morelli's guidance, even when it didn't really mesh with what he felt and believed in his heart. And yet now, he really didn't feel comfortable talking about how all of this was churning him up inside. It was enough that Morelli knew what was going on, that at least he didn't have to pretend nothing was wrong. With Morelli or with Lennie. Going into detail over "how does all of this make you feel" was unnecessary.

Rey gave the bookshelves one final glance, noting the large gaps here and there. He wondered how Deborah would feel about that when she got home.

He checked his watch. OK, late enough. He sealed up the final box, reminded himself to clear the living room and basement tomorrow, and headed for bed.

===

_Friday, October 20  
12:30 pm_

Finally, Lennie sighed with relief. A witness. As per usual after spending days knocking on doors and stopping people on the street, Lennie felt deep sympathy for Amway salesmen and Jehovah's Witnesses. He once more vowed to himself that the next time one of them came to his door he would be just a little more polite.

Happily, their tedium had paid off. Their witness had seen the first crash, seen a big white guy get out of his car and scare the crap out of a white girl until she drove off, and gotten a partial licence as he drove off after her, crashing into one of his neighbour's cars in the process. Way to go, conscientious citizen!

Rey seemed somewhat more with it, too. Apparently he was now at a hotel, having moved out of his home the day before. His family was supposed to be coming back today - right around now, as a matter of fact. Lennie wondered if Rey's wife would bother to call him.

Probably not. In Lennie's experience, this was just not something you could forgive. And having been on both sides of the fence, the adulterer and the adulteree, he could certainly understand why. The thought of the person you loved sweating up the sheets with somebody else... that just wasn't something you walked back from. Rey was lucky his wife was willing to set up an e-mail account to 'talk' to him.

"OK, so we got a partial plate," Lennie said as he got into the car. "You wanna go send it in, see if we can track this big scary white guy down by the end of the day?"

"Huh?" Rey said, startled out of another bout of brooding.

"The case, Rey," Lennie said patiently. "The partial plate we just got."

"Yeah, sure," Rey said without much enthusiasm.

"Come on," Lennie said encouragingly. "Let's go call it in and have some lunch."

===

_Saturday, October 21_  
_12:00 pm_

"DADDY!!"

The front door opened and Rey was buried in a mass of hugs, and a shrill babble of two little voices as Serena and Olivia tumbled over themselves telling him everything about the last week, all at once. Isabel just snuggled up silently, squeezing him tight. He hugged his children, happy to see them, taking reassurance in that much normalcy at least.

"Oh, sorry, Mommy," Olivia spotted Deborah emerging from the kitchen and pulled Serena out of the way, expecting her parents to greet each other the way they always did after a few days apart.

"OK, girls, let's get you into the car, it's time to go," Deborah said cheerfully, picking up Isabel's jacket and starting to get her into it. Olivia looked from her to Rey in puzzlement.

"You forgot to say hi to Daddy," she reminded Deborah.

"Hi, Rey. Come on, girls, let's go," she zipped up Isabel and moved outside to the car. "Serena, bring the diaper bag, please," she called over her shoulder. Serena headed out quickly, chattering excitedly. Olivia watched her mother go, somewhat puzzled.

Rey helped Olivia and Serena into the car as Deborah buckled Isabel into her car seat, and checked the diaper bag as she said goodbye to the girls. Diapers and wipes for Isabel, juice cups for all of them. Good. Deborah was nothing if not efficient.

"You have your cell phone on?" she asked him.

"Yeah-"

"Have fun. Bye, girls!" she waved to them, heading back into the house.

"You forgot to say bye to Daddy!" Olivia hollered, but Deborah was already inside.

"How come she didn't say goodbye?" Olivia asked once they were on their way.

"Mommy's really busy, sweetie," Rey answered casually, cursing Deborah for putting him in this position. Damn it, he didn't want to lie to his family any more. He'd had enough of that for a whole lifetime.

Then again, what could he possibly say?

_I'll let them know that their father cared more about a random piece of ass than he cared about us, and that's why Mommy and Daddy aren't married any more. Happy?_

===

_11:54 pm_

Weekend Daddy.

That's what he was now, Rey thought tiredly as he tried to get to sleep that night in the still-unfamiliar hotel bed. For the foreseeable future, anyway. And it was one hell of a role.

He'd been put off at first that Deborah only allowed five hours, but now he was glad she had. Although they'd had a great time together at lunch, a museum and a toy store, keeping three little girls busy for five hours outside of the home was exhausting. There was no "go play in your playroom" when they were getting on his nerves. There was nowhere for them to go. And there had been about twenty minor emergencies that, rather than being dealt with by sending the child in question to her room, had had to be dealt with in public. Serena deciding she wanted THAT doll. Olivia freaking out because Serena was staring at her. Isabel sticking a french fry up her nose and finding out that ketchup burned.

And the worst part was, nobody else there to take care of the other two while he dealt with the minor emergency. Resulting in more emergencies as another child got into trouble while he was busy with the first. Not that he wasn't used to handling the kids on his own, but for that long, in such artificial circumstances, without even being able to look forward to telling Deborah about their shenanigans when he got them home...

Five hours really was a long, long time to be alone with the kids. It was too long. And it wasn't long enough.

Please don't let this be the way it's going to be from now on, Rey prayed. This is no way for our daughters to grow up. Please let Deborah see that. Soon.

Unfortunately, it seemed that he had to hope for divine intervention in this, because he himself couldn't get a word in with Deborah. When he'd brought the girls home, she'd spoken to him only long enough to suggest that she take the girls to their regular morning church service, he take them to lunch, and attend the afternoon service himself. Handed him her new e-mail account and told him she'd already called him a cab, then calmly reminded the girls that Daddy had to go. He'd left with the sound of his daughters' confusion and dismay ringing in his ears.

===

_Sunday, October 22_  
_12:35 pm_

"Don't you love us any more, Daddy?" Serena asked the next day, as Rey herded them back to the church after lunch.

"What?" Rey asked, startled from his task of helping Isabel up the church stairs.

"How come you're not staying with us? Don't you love us?" she asked him seriously.

Oh my god, he thought, standing stock still on the steps. Children could say the most awful things with such nonchalance. "No, that's not - sweetie, that's not what this is about."

"Are you gonna stop being our daddy?" Serena asked.

"No, sweetie, I'm still your daddy, just... I can't come home right now."

"Why not?"

"I just can't."

"Were we bad?"

"NO! No, you-" he took a deep breath. OK, this had to be dealt with. Now. "Look... I have to talk to Mommy about this, OK?" he began to help Isabel climb the steps again, held the door open for all of them. "But just - just don't think it's you." He glanced up, catching sight of Deborah heading across the church lobby towards them, obviously ready to take the girls home. "Um... here, let's go into the nursery, OK? You girls can play here for a little bit while I talk to Mommy." Deborah frowned as he indicated that he was taking the girls to the church nursery.

"We need to talk," he told Deborah as she approached the nursery with Father Morelli in tow. "The girls wanna know what's going on. And I don't know what to tell them."

She frowned impatiently. "I told them you're not living with us any more and it's complicated. What else am I supposed to say?"

"Deborah, that's not good enough," Morelli said chidingly. "Your daughters may be small, but they need more of an explanation than that. They're going to want to know how long this is going to last, for one thing." Deborah opened her mouth to reply and Morelli cut her off, obviously knowing what she was going to say, "And don't say forever, because you don't know that."

"You want me to tell them what happened? You're the one who's been telling me I need to take him into account, I need to respect the father-child bond and all that crap-"

Morelli cut her off again. "However you feel about Rey right now, the fact is that you two are still parents. Your daughters have to be your priority. You can't allow your negative feelings for him to affect them. They're upset enough."

"Fine. So what do I say?"

"How about, for now, just tell them you're having problems, but that you're working them out. Be reassuring."

"In other words, lie to them."

"It doesn't have to be a lie. I realize that things don't look good right now, but you can come to counseling-"

"No way in hell."

"Deborah," Morelli admonished gently. "You're in church." Deborah made an impatient gesture of apology. "Look, whether you agree to save this marriage or not-"

"What marriage?"

"I want you to come to counseling." Deborah blew out her breath. "As a matter of fact, I'm going to urge you to do so, very, very strongly. As your spiritual advisor. I want the two of you to come to counseling so that you can work out how to best meet the needs of your children, if nothing else."

Deborah was silent for a long time, gazing at the girls as they happily played in the church nursery. Finally, reluctantly, she nodded. Rey let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

"Rey?" Morelli asked. "Do you agree?"

"Yeah. Of course."

"All right. So let's set something up." Rey and Deborah followed Morelli into his office.

===

_Tuesday, October 24_  
_8:00 pm_

Rey forced himself not to pace as he waited for Deborah and Father Morelli to begin their counseling, trying to remember the last time he'd felt this far out of his depth.

What the hell did people do in counseling?

He'd read the pamphlet Morelli had given him, 'Marital Counseling and You,' and found it completely unhelpful. Beyond setting some basic ground rules of conduct during their sessions, there was nothing there about how this was supposed to save their marriage. Or help their daughters in any way that he could grasp.

Work, he could do. At work, he knew how to handle crises, knew what was expected of him. This... was unknown territory.

Not completely unknown, though. Deborah had been a church counselor for a few years now, so Rey was familiar with the kinds of things that came up, although he always felt somewhat impatient when Deborah told him about the people she counseled. My job sucks, would say one man, and Rey would ask Deborah why he didn't switch jobs. My husband hits me, a woman would say, and Rey would ask why she didn't just kick the son of a bitch out, charge him with assault, and get on with her life. I'm tired of taking care of my elderly father, would say another, and Rey would ask why she didn't just get somebody else to take care of him for a while, take a break, and stop whining.

Deborah always teased him that he should try being a counselor, if he thought it was that easy. And he'd tease back that she was the one with the patience - his advice would invariably be, "Get a grip."

And now here he was, in the same position as the people he'd denigrated in his thoughts.

Damn it.

He made himself stop fidgeting, tried to distract himself. Not everything was out of control in his life - for example, they'd finally arrested the guy who drove Karen Whatney off the Bridge. A big guy. A big, stupid guy. They'd tracked down the partial licence number to a man named 'Crazy Mike' McDugan, whom a neighbour referred to as a 'menace.' Which sounded about right, from the description they'd gotten from the Bridge witnesses and the guy on Henry Street. So they tracked him down to his favourite bar, and arrested the big, dumb brute.

Work, he could do. Work, he was very good at. This...

"OK, come in, Rey," Morelli opened the door and ushered him in. Deborah was already there, her expression cold and unyielding.

"Let's start off with setting some expectations," Morelli began briskly. "What are your goals with this counseling?"

"To get a divorce without harming the girls," Deborah replied promptly.

"Well, that's not going to happen, Deborah," Morelli said calmly, as Rey swallowed hard. "Divorce will harm them. Besides, we've already discussed this, and you agreed not to consider that until you've given counseling a fair chance."

"OK then, to help the girls through whatever happens."

"OK, that's a worthwhile goal. Rey?"

"What?"

"What's your goal?" Morelli asked patiently.

"To not get a divorce," he said uncomfortably, not needing to look at Deborah to guess the expression on her face. Angry impatience. The only way she'd been looking at him since this began.

"Well, then, you might as well walk right out of here-" she began heatedly.

"Deborah. You don't get to talk right now," Morelli reminded her calmly, and continued as she turned on him angrily. "You'll get your turn, but this won't work if you don't follow some basic guidelines." He turned back to Rey. "Go on."

"What? I don't have anything else to say."

"OK. Well, this is a good start," Morelli said encouragingly. Deborah and Rey stared at him with identical expressions of skeptical disbelief.

===

_Tuesday, October 31_  
_8:04 pm_

"OK, remember, don't eat any of it till Mommy checks it out," Rey said, as he herded the girls back into the house at the end of trick-or-treating. Deborah greeted them, exclaiming over their loot, helping them into the house. She held the door open for Rey.

"Come in," she said unemotionally. "I've called your cab but they said it'll be about ten minutes."

"Oh - thanks," Rey stepped inside, realizing he hadn't been in his own house since he'd moved out, eleven days ago. Strange to be here as a visitor.

That was a good start, Morelli had said again at the end of their first counseling session the week before, and Rey had suppressed a smart-aleck question as to what exactly would have qualified as a bad start. Morelli had pointed out that it was encouraging that the two of them were willing to come to counseling and listen to each other, and Rey had suppressed an observation about how there hadn't been much listening to 'each other' as far as he could tell. The session had seemed to consist mostly of Deborah ranting at him for betraying her and lying to her, and him sitting through it, since he pretty much agreed with everything she said. He didn't really see what that had accomplished.

Although at least they'd discussed what to do with the kids, and how to explain the situation to them. That alone was worth the session, he supposed. And then they'd all agreed to skip counseling the next week, since it was Halloween, so that he could take the kids out trick-or-treating.

He helped Isabel off with her teddy bear costume and listened to the older girls telling Deborah about trick-or-treating, wishing he felt a part of this. Remembering the previous year, when he and Deborah had done Halloween together - helped put the kids' costumes on, taken turns walking them around the neighbourhood and answering the door for the other kids, and shared stories of what they'd seen on their rounds when they were done.

Not much chance of that today. Deborah had been uniformly distant with him, saying as little as humanly possible unless it had to do with the children. He was getting used to it. And the sad thing was, the girls were getting used to it too.

He glanced around curiously, oddly surprised to see that the house seemed pretty much the same as when he'd left. Same furniture, same pictures of the kids, same art work. Why had he expected it to look different? Oh - there was a difference. Their family portrait was gone from the living room coffee table. He swallowed, refusing to speculate as to what Deborah had done with it and whether she'd gotten rid of any other pictures of him in the house. Not that there were that many - most of their pictures were of the kids.

Oh - he spotted the portrait on a side table. She'd just moved it. Strangely comforted by that, he brought his attention back to Deborah, realizing she'd just said something.

"Sorry, what?"

"I said thank you for taking them out."

"You're welcome. Were there a lot of kids here?"

"The usual. It's tapered off a bit in the last half hour." She finished taking off Serena's witch costume and hung up their jackets. "OK, girls, say night-night to Daddy." Serena and Isabel grabbed on to him for hugs.

"Night-night, Daddy," Olivia called over her shoulder, starting up the stairs with her loot bag.

"Get back here, say a proper good night, you won't see him till the weekend," Deborah reminded her sternly. Olivia quickly ran back down the stairs and gave him a hug, turning and pulling Serena up the stairs behind her.

"I can eat more than you!" she bragged breathlessly.

"Daddy said we had to wait for Mommy to check!" Serena protested.

"Daddy's right, Livie," Deborah called up behind them. "You can count out your candy, but don't eat any till I get up there!" They both winced as the door slammed behind the girls, a faint, 'OK, Mommy,' floating down the stairs. Isabel plopped down to dig through her loot bag.

"Here, sweetie, let me see that for a minute," Rey crouched down beside her, scanning for gum and other items that Isabel was too small to eat. He rubbed his arms absently, shivering a bit. "It's cold in here," he realized.

"Yeah, I know. I haven't done the window insulation yet," Deborah sighed.

"You want me to do that?" Rey offered after a brief hesitation.

"Oh," Deborah said, slightly startled. "OK, sure. Thanks. I was kind of dreading it."

"Hon - Deborah, you don't have to - if, if you want me to do anything around the house, just ask."

"I don't need you to-"

"I know you don't need me to, but you've got enough to do taking care of the kids by yourself," he stood up, handing her several pieces of gum and two jawbreakers he'd found in Isabel's bag.

"Thanks," she smiled, a small, but genuine smile. He smiled back tentatively, then noticed his cab pulling up.

"See you Saturday."

"Rey..." he turned back. "If you want to call the girls at bedtime sometimes... that would be OK. I think they'd like that."

"Thanks," he replied after a surprised moment.

"And... they asked if you wanted to help out with their Sunday School. If you wanted to... that, that would be OK with me," she said quickly, looking away from him. She cleared her throat. "Go get your cab. Good night."

===

_Tuesday, November 6_  
_3:30 pm_

This one was at least an obvious homicide, Rey thought as he read over the notes for their latest case. Nothing ambiguous about it, a woman named Shelley Ganz had been shot dead in her parking garage over the weekend. They'd done what they could at the scene and with Ganz's parents over the weekend, Rey fitting in his time with the girls in between the investigation. Then on Monday they'd started the investigation in earnest.

First thing Monday morning, they'd gone to see her ex-boyfriend. A sleaze who had apparently cheated on her with a coworker, been dumped by both when they learned about each other, and unfortunately, had an alibi. Then they'd talked to people at her workplace, none of whom had a problem with Ganz.

From there they had gone to her parents' co-op board, a "thorn in her side," her boss had said. Ganz had been the treasurer, in charge of a lot of the dirty work at the co-op, including screening prospective co-op members and approving or disapproving loans for current co-op members.

Back at the precinct, they'd scanned the application records and found some possible leads among applicants to the co-op who had been turned down. Like the scum who ran an "adult bookstore," claimed he was single but was in fact divorced with two kids, and owed $50,000 in child support.

Rey had stared at that figure, wondering what the hell was wrong with people. $50,000 - how could you owe your kids $50,000? Guys who got divorced, the least they could do was give their kids all the money they could, since they'd already screwed up their lives by not giving them the proper two-parent family every child deserved.

And there it was again. It wasn't a theoretical "they" any more. It was him now.

He'd shaken his head. No, it wasn't him. And it wouldn't be him. No matter what happened between him and Deborah, no way was he ever going to begrudge his kids one penny of what he earned. He'd brought his attention back to the deadbeat dad.

Who turned out to be another dead end. They'd thought that maybe Ganz had threatened to report him, but the scumbucket, proudly showing off a porn store that made Rey feel grimy just being inside it, had had no idea that Ganz was probably the one who'd ratted him out to his ex. Said he was going to sue her.

Too late.

"...so what do you think? The Tashjians look good to you?" Lennie broke into his thoughts.

"I guess so..." Rey said dispiritedly, glancing over financial records. Two days into the investigation, there weren't any other promising leads. The co-op was a secondary lender and some of Ganz's fellow tenants were behind on their payments, but nobody seemed desperate enough to do anything drastic. Except possibly Steven and Susan Tashjian, who owned an ad agency and who'd applied to use their co-op as collateral to renegotiate a loan. Ganz was supposed to have decided on their application three weeks ago, and according to their loan company, Beachwood Loan, if they didn't get the approval they were going to default on their loan and lose their company. Which had been in trouble for a while.

Losing a business. That could drive some people to murder. Rey grabbed his coat and prepared to rattle the Tashjians a little, see what fell out.

"Oh, by the way," Lennie mentioned as they left the precinct, "I have a friend who's looking for a sublet for his place-"

"Yeah, thanks," Rey said quickly, "That's OK. I'd rather just do a straight rent, not a sublet. I'll uh, I'll probably start looking this weekend," he put Lennie off, for some reason reluctant to talk about his housing situation. "So uh, you wanna talk to the husband or the wife?"

===

_8:00 pm_

"Where's Father Morelli?" Rey asked Deborah as he entered Morreli's office that night.

"I don't know-" the door opened and the church secretary poked her head in.

"Father Morelli said to tell you he's been held up," she said distractedly. "He'll be here in about twenty minutes. Make yourselves at home," she waved at the chairs and ducked back out.

"Oh, OK. Thanks," Rey said to her rapidly retreating back. He and Deborah glanced at each other, off-balance. Then, unexpectedly, Deborah smiled slightly.

"You don't think this is some kind of ploy, do you? Part of marital therapy, get the two people in a room alone together, see what happens?" Rey chuckled, somewhat startled at her humour.

"Hey, we were OK the whole two weeks. We oughtta tell him that."

"You think we'll get stars or something, for good behaviour?" Deborah asked, and he smiled. There was a brief pause.

"How, uh... how've you been?" she asked hesitantly. They really hadn't talked, beyond giving each other information about the children as he picked them up or dropped them off.

"OK..." he fidgeted, unsure of what to say.

"What happened with that new case you caught over the weekend?" Rey looked at her questioningly. "You said you were doing interviews on a new case on Sunday after church? How's it going?"

"Oh, yeah, the Ganz case," he answered, grateful for a topic to grab on to. He started to tell her about their best suspect so far, Steven Tashjian. Deborah frowned slightly as he finished.

"So you think this was over a loan?"

"We don't know. The Tashjians are about to lose their business, and the vic was probably gonna stop them from using their co-op as collateral."

"Even if he killed her, he'd have to convince the rest of the board to let him use it."

"Looked like the vic was the only one on the board who could say no."

"Not much of a motive," Deborah said doubtfully. Rey shrugged. Tashjian had pointed out the same thing, and he was right. Rey debated telling Deborah the rest of the story; that they'd noticed that Tashjian's regular parking spot was the space where Shelley Ganz was killed. That they suspected maybe he meant to kill his wife instead, and collect on her insurance money. And Shelley Ganz, who looked a lot like Susan Tashjian and drove the same kind of car, just happened to park in the wrong spot that day.

No, he decided, there was no need to go relating tales of couples who were doing so badly they put out a hit on each other. That just might put a rather abrupt end to this unexpectedly pleasant conversation they were having. He cast about for another safe topic, hoping they could keep things OK until Morelli showed up. Wishing he could ask her what was going on inside her, why she seemed to be thawing towards him, but knowing that probably wouldn't do anything other than make her defensive.

"So, uh, how's Isabel's ear infection?"

"Oh, it's better. Thanks for catching it. I just thought she was being a pain just for the fun of it."

"She do OK at the doctor's?"

"Well, you know Isabel. Dr. Merritt is not her favourite person."

"She didn't bite him again, did she?"

"No," Deborah smirked, "Not this time. He still looked like he wanted to examine her from across the room though," they shared a laugh. Rey caught his breath, hiding his reaction at seeing an expression other than distance or anger on Deborah's face.

Hold on, he told himself sternly. Just because she's not clawing your eyes out right now, doesn't mean there's not a long way to go to get back what you once had.

But dear God, it felt good.


	3. Separation

**CHAPTER 3: SEPARATION**

_Friday, November 10  
2:35 pm_

Lennie idly watched the hookers plying their trade as Rey talked to somebody on his cell, trying to track down their latest suspect in the Shelley Ganz murder. Stakeouts. Not his favourite part of the job, but at least he was warmer and more comfortable than the girls out there.

They'd decided to go with the mistaken identity theory. Checked out Steven Tashjian and found that he did have a large policy on his wife and they'd been fighting like cats and dogs recently. Found that the wife should have been at home that night, but had changed her plans at the last minute without telling her husband. Ah, love and marriage. Or murder and marriage. They both went together like... whatever.

Of course, she laughed at their suggestion that her husband might have put a hit on her. But she was willing to think it over when they asked her if anybody had been following her lately, and she remembered somebody had tried to deliver an envelope to her.

The doorman made a lousy witness when it came to identifying the would-be delivery man, but he'd sure noticed the car - a luxury car with some damage on it. Went to her workplace and found some guy in another luxury car with damage on it had been by the ad agency. They'd tracked down body shops that worked on luxury cars and did the rounds, showing their lousy picture. Found one guy who thought the picture looked a little like Enrique Flores, who did some overflow work for his shop. So they'd decided to stake out Flores' body shop.

"Would you look at those girls, Rey?" Lennie mused, gesturing at the hookers as Rey hung up. "Thirty degrees, freezing rain, they haven't taken a break since we got here."

"The politicians who complain about the vanishing work ethic should meet these women."

"Bet they have," Lennie joked, and Rey smiled slightly. "So you find a place yet?"

"Nah, still looking. Might not need it."

"Yeah? Good!" Lennie nodded, somewhat surprised that Rey was saying anything. He'd made a few forays into this territory, always politely rebuffed. He hesitated a moment before saying, "Listen, you know, I been down this road a coupla times, if you wanna talk."

"Yeah, thanks. We're getting counseling."

"Shrinks can be helpful," Lennie said.

"It's a priest," Rey clarified, slightly offended.

"Whatever works," Lennie chuckled, amused at Rey's automatic bristle.

"Hey, Lennie. That looks like him," Rey said, pointing to a guy who'd just driven up to the body shop. Lennie notified the other unit to go in as Rey drove up to Flores' shop. They got out and Rey took out his badge, and Lennie grinned as the stupid mook immediately turned and started running. Bingo.

===

_Saturday, November 11_  
_4:45 pm_

"How come you're not coming home, Daddy?" Olivia asked that weekend as they prepared to go home. Rey sighed as he unlocked the car, trying to choose his words carefully. Balance honesty with reassurance, he reminded himself, like they'd talked about in counseling. The important thing is for them to know this is not their fault.

"Um... I did something I shouldn't have done. And when grown-ups do something they shouldn't do, sometimes they don't get to live with their families any more."

"Are you gonna go to jail?" Olivia asked.

"What?!" he stared at her. Olivia bit her lip and said meekly,

"You, you said before, when grownups do something bad they go to jail..."

"Oh, sweetie, no, of course not." He knelt down and hugged her tight. "No, no, I'm not going to jail. I'd never do anything _that_ bad." Good God.

"What did you do?" Serena asked curiously.

Rey cleared his throat. "You know how we always tell you it's really, really important to keep your word?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I didn't. I broke a promise to your Mom," he said, forcing himself to keep an even tone despite the expressions of incredulity and dismay on his daughters' faces, but unable to maintain eye contact with them.

"What was the promise?" Olivia asked.

"That part's kinda hard to explain."

"Was it a really important promise?" Olivia asked. He nodded. "So how come you broke it?"

"I made a mistake," he said simply.

"Pretty big mistake," she said resentfully, glaring at him. He swallowed hard and nodded again.

"Everybody makes mistakes, baby," he said. "And when we do, we have to try to make up for them. I'm trying."

"Are you ever gonna come home, Daddy?" Serena asked.

"Sweetie, I don't know. I hope so."

"Does Mommy have to say it's OK for you to come back?"

"Yeah, that's part of it."

"Did you say you were sorry? You gotta say you're sorry," she told him seriously.

"I - I did, sweetheart, but-"

"So Mommy's supposed to forgive you. That's what you said, when somebody says they're sorry you havta forgive them. Like when Isabel broke my Lego castle."

"Sometimes it takes a while. And sometimes you can't forgive."

"That's not what you said," she said stubbornly. "You said that we havta forgive. It says so in the Bible, even. I'm gonna tell Mommy she better forgive you quick or I'm gonna tell Father Galvez-"

"Bunny, please don't do that," he chuckled, picturing Deborah's face if Serena actually said that. "That really wouldn't help. This is just something we have to work out ourselves, OK?" Serena nodded, calmly accepting his words. Olivia's lips pursed in disapproval and he looked away from her, feeling her respect for him diminished by his admission. Once more feeling that crawl of disgust at himself, that feeling that he was walking in his father's footsteps.

No, he wasn't. He was walking out of them. His father had never once faced the people he'd wronged, never even tried to make amends, even though his constant philandering was the worst-kept secret in their house. Damned if he was going to do that. He cleared his throat again, checked his watch.

"OK, we gotta get you girls home," he motioned them into the car. Olivia scowled but got in without further comment. "Hey what's that?" he spotted a book on the floor of the car.

"Oh that's our Sailor Moon colouring book," Serena said happily. "I saw it on TV, and I asked Mommy an' I asked an' I asked an' she said no and you know what? When Olivia did all her spelling words right, Mommy asked what she wanted and she said Sailor Moon colouring book and Mommy said OK!!"

"You saw an ad for Sailor Moon?" Rey asked, frowning slightly. "On TV?"

"Yeah! They got so much cool stuff, Daddy!!" Olivia chimed in, her disapproval of him forgotten as she launched into an excited exhaustive description of Sailor Moon merchandise.

===

"I thought we talked about this, Deborah," Rey said after he brought the girls back home.

"We did. I changed my mind," Deborah said evenly.

"Just like that?" Rey asked. "Look, we both agreed network shows aren't good for kids. So today I find out they've been watching them on a regular basis?"

"What do you want me to do? I'm by myself, I have to get dinner made, and I can't if they're running all over the kitchen interfering-"

"So you're dumping them in front of the TV every night and not giving a da- not caring what they're watching?"

"Listen, if you think it's so easy, why don't you just-"

"Take them some weeknights too?" Rey interrupted heatedly. "No problem. I offered before but you didn't-"

"I was going to say, why don't you just keep that to yourself? I didn't have to agree to let you have them every weekend."

"Yeah?" Rey felt a surge of anger. How dare she threaten him with taking away visitation. "Don't even go there. I'm _not_ getting them every weekend. I'm getting them for five hours on Saturday and lunch and Sunday School on Sunday. I could petition to have them for the whole weekend and there's not a lawyer in the world that would say that's too much-"

"Oh, you've been doing some research, Rey?" Deborah shot back sarcastically. "Research this! You wanna go to a lawyer over what TV the girls watch?! I'll-" they both suddenly realized that the girls were watching them, eyes wide and scared. Deborah closed her mouth, looking shaken. She cleared her throat. "I... I think we better talk about this on Tuesday."

"Yeah," Rey agreed quickly. "I, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have brought it up here." He turned to the girls and held out his arms and the girls ran to him, relieved expressions on all three small faces. "OK, girls, I gotta go. See you tomorrow at Sunday School, OK?"

===

_Tuesday, November 14_  
_4:45 pm_

"Well if Flores ever did work on Tashjian's car, I can't find any evidence of it," Rey said, discouraged.

This was the frustrating thing about solving cases, Lennie thought. It was exciting when you didn't know who had committed a crime, but irritating as hell when you knew, and just couldn't prove it.

They'd presented Enrique Flores to their incompetent doorman witness - no dice. Nothing to hold him on for more than a few days, still not sure they had the right guy or even the right theory. Lennie had prepared to keep digging for conclusive evidence, part of him hoping that Ganz had nothing to do with Steven and Susan Tashjian and that Flores was just a red herring. Because otherwise... somebody had hired Flores. Somebody who still wanted Susan Tashjian dead.

And then Susan Tashjian had been gunned down outside her gym. So much for that faint hope. As Lennie had told McCoy at the crime scene, "Times like this, I'd rather be wrong."

They'd hauled in the grieving widower, who of course denied everything, and with no solid evidence, they had to let him go too. So now they were searching for some kind of link between Tashjian and Flores.

"Who would you go to if you needed a hit man?" Jamie asked Rey.

"I'd find an old cop - preferably one with a lot of alimony," he said seriously, and Lennie mimed a mock hit at him. They all chuckled, then Jamie narrowed her eyes at the file she was going through.

"Where'd Tashjian get his business loan?"

"From uh... Beachwood Loan Company in Brooklyn," Lennie replied, checking his file.

"Flores borrowed $90,000 from them last year to buy a frame straightener," Jamie showed them the receipt.

Ooh. A link. Score one for the pretty ADA. Jamie got up with enthusiasm, eager to go check out the link and leaving Rey and Lennie to sift through the remaining paperwork for any other possible leads.

"Speaking of alimony, you two work that out yet?" Lennie asked after Jamie left.

"Nah, I'm just depositing in our joint account like before," Rey said distractedly, going over Flores' financial records again. Lennie winced. Great idea. An ex with a grudge, expensive tastes, and access to your finances. You might as well bare your throat to a hungry Rottweiler.

"How's counseling going?" Lennie asked. Rey glanced at him impatiently. Lennie ignored his irritation and patiently waited for an answer.

"Pretty bad the first time, not so bad the second," he said grudgingly. "Speaking of which..." he checked his watch, "I gotta go."

"Oh right, Tuesday night. Good luck," Lennie said as Rey left. He put away their papers, amusing himself trying to picture what counseling would be like with somebody as taciturn as Rey. What did their priest do? Do the session in mime?

He got ready to go, remembering his own counseling sessions at the end of his second marriage. So much time and money wasted, so much yelling and screaming. It had been like poking a dying animal just to watch it squirm: sadistic, bizarre, ugly, and useless.

Well, hopefully Rey would see the light soon and get out with dignity as intact as it could be. In the meantime, his partner was slightly more cheerless (he'd gone from dour to glum, not a big change), and somewhat more of a workaholic. Not that Rey had been a slacker before, but since his separation he'd been racking up the overtime like there was no tomorrow. It certainly made Lennie's job a breeze, now that his partner seemed to have absolutely no life outside of work.

===

_8:20 pm_

"What am I supposed to do? Talk over every little thing?" Deborah asked that night.

"No, but you are still sharing responsibility for your children," Morelli said. "I would suggest you set aside a time during the week when you can talk about major decisions."

"This is stupid," she muttered resentfully.

"Welcome to separate parenthood," Morelli pointed out. "This is why it's better to stay married. Speaking of which..."

"Don't - we're not talking about that yet," Deborah said quickly. The same thing she'd said when Morelli had wanted to explore the issue of them getting back together near the end of last week's session.

At least she wasn't rejecting the idea outright any more, thought Rey. 'Yet' did imply that some day, maybe...

"Fine," Morelli said easily. "For now, just concentrate on not fighting in front of your children. And don't use visitation as a weapon. You especially, Deborah - Rey's right, he could very well petition for more time with them, and he would be well within his rights."

"Oh, terrific. He's the one who cheats on me and lies to me for five months, but I have to tiptoe around his parental rights. That's great."

"Yes, it is," Morelli agreed with forced cheer. "Now, I want you both to promise no repetition of Saturday's event. And no denigrating the other parent to the children when they aren't there, either."

"I wouldn't say anything against her," Rey protested.

"That's what you say now, but it can get easy to lose sight of that as a separation progresses. I want you both to promise not to use your children as weapons against each other."

"You want him to promise? What good will that do? If he kept his promises, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place," Deborah said bitterly.

"If I _didn't_ keep my promises we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place," Rey shot back, temper fraying.

"What?"

"The night I told you about the affair. You made me promise that if I ever stepped out on you I would tell you. So I did. You're welcome," he said sarcastically. "And by the way, you promised that if I ever did tell you, you would still try to save our marriage."

"And you're holding me to that?!" Deborah asked incredulously.

"NO! I'm not, I know you didn't seriously think it was ever gonna come up-"

"Then why even bring it up-"

"I'm getting sick of you throwing the same damn thing in my face over and over again!"

"Oh, I should just forgive and forget-"

"No, God damn it, but-"

"Rey!" Morelli snapped. Rey set his jaw and crossed his arms, pushing down resentment.

"Sorry, Father." There was a long silence, finally broken by Deborah.

"Why did it have to take a promise like that for you to tell me?" she asked softly. He looked at her questioningly and she took a deep breath, visibly trying to gather her thoughts. "Why didn't you... I mean, if, if you'd told me right away... I would've been pretty mad, but I think... I think I would've been able to forgive you, eventually. I would've been hurt, but at least I wouldn't be where I am now, knowing you can just lie to me for months and I won't even know. That's - that's the part that kills me the most. And you should've known that."

Rey looked down, not knowing what to say to that.

"Why did you listen to him? When he said not to tell me?" Deborah asked softly.

Rey glanced at Father Morelli. "He... he knows a lot more about marriages than I do, Deborah."

"He knows marriages. He doesn't know _our_ marriage. He doesn't know me. You do."

"I know."

"You knew what was the right thing to do. How could you trust him more than you trusted yourself?"

"Deborah... I didn't trust myself at all."

"Why not?!" she asked, frustrated.

"You have to ask that?!" Rey asked in disbelief. "I had just done something I swore I'd never do. I, I didn't know what to think. About myself, about anything," he spread his hands, trying to explain. "Shit. I, I couldn't believe what I'd done. I couldn't understand how I let myself think it was OK. I - I thought of you and, and I was so damn scared and..." he felt his throat tightening up and stopped, appalled at himself. "I'm sorry. I can't," he shook his head, crossing his arms and retreating to regain his composure.

"OK," Morelli said gently after a moment. "Um... I think this is something we'll have to talk over next time. Why don't we leave it for next week?" he suggested, and Deborah nodded reluctantly. Rey rubbed his forehead and nodded as well, deeply dismayed at the thought of going over that day with Deborah.

It would be OK, though. He'd have a week to brace himself for it. And he did owe her that at least, as difficult as it would undoubtedly be to go through it.

"So..." Morelli reached for another topic. "The pros and cons of network TV. This seems like a good time to go over that, don't you think?"

===

_Saturday, November 18_  
_12:45 pm_

"How come your Mommy didn't come for lunch too?" Rey's sister Lisa asked Serena that weekend as she helped the girls out of their jackets.

"Um, Lisa-" Rey began, but Serena answered Lisa matter-of-factly,

"'Cause it's Daddy's turn to be with us. It's Saturday." She put her rain boots away neatly and scurried into Lisa's house, where Olivia and Isabel had already found the inevitable stash of cookies that Lisa always made for them.

"Um, I have them on the weekends. Saturday and part of Sunday," Rey explained.

"What do you mean you have them on the weekend? What about the rest of the week?"

"I uh... I'm not living with them right now."

"What?!" Lisa gasped. "Why not?"

"I'm staying at a hotel. We're - we're going through some trouble."

"For how long?"

"About a month."

"What?!" Lisa gaped, then hid her incredulous expression as Isabel came running back to offer her a cookie. Holy hell. Rey and Deborah had never had any problems before, to her knowledge. However, now was certainly not the time to talk about it, with the girls underfoot. She sent Isabel back to the kitchen for more cookies before turning back to Rey.

"Listen, don't stay at a hotel. Come stay here. At least tonight, OK?" He automatically started to turn her down. "Come on, don't be like that," she urged. "Stay here tonight. You can go back to your hotel tomorrow." She smiled as he reluctantly agreed.

===

"So, you gonna tell me what happened?" Lisa asked that night. She sighed as Rey's expression closed up and she sensed his walls going up again.

Damn it, she thought. How could he not have said anything to her before now. They used to be close, but he'd been so busy with his job and the kids in the last few years, and she'd been so busy with her own job and her troubled marriage, that they'd drifted apart. Now she put her hand on his arm and tried to get him to open up. "Come on, bro. Tell me," she said gently.

He bit his lip, obviously trying to find the words, and she tried to lighten the mood. "You didn't step out on Deborah, did you?" she joked. He flushed. Lisa's eyes widened. "Did you?" Rey looked away. She stood up, incredulous.

"You had an affair?!" He chewed on his lip as her disbelief give way to absolute white-hot fury. "Jesus Christ!!"

"Lisa, what the hell-" Lisa's husband poked his head into the kitchen, frowning in annoyance.

"You son of a bitch - how could you do that to her?!" she slapped Rey across the face and he put his hand to his cheek, glaring at her, but keeping silent.

"Lisa, what the hell do you think you're doing?!" Lisa's husband grabbed at her.

"He cheated on Deborah!" she screamed. "I'm not gonna have this goddamn piece of shit who can't keep his hands off other women staying in my house!! Get out!" she raged at Rey. "You make me sick!! Get out of my house!!"

Rey sighed and went to get his suitcase, overhearing snatches of conversation from the kitchen.

"Come on, he's your brother, he's-"

"He's worthless scum! He has three kids, he knows, he _knows_ what this does to kids, and he still - fuck him! If he wants to ruin his life and destroy his family, that's his business, I'm not putting him up!"

"Lisa! Get a hold of yourself, for crying out loud!" Their voices dropped to low murmurs as Rey impatiently waited for them to get out of the kitchen so that he could get to the phone and call a cab.

Well, that went well, he thought, rubbing his cheek absently. He'd meant to tell Lisa what was going on before lunch today, but somehow just couldn't seem to find the words over the phone. God, he'd told Morelli, he'd told Deborah, he'd told Lennie - he'd even, in a way, told his daughters - you'd think it would get easier somehow. And yet every time it hurt like hell.

Finally the murmurs died down.

"Rey." Lisa stood at the kitchen doorway as her husband went down to their basement, casting Rey a sympathetic glance on the way.

"Yeah."

"How long has this been going on?" she asked sternly.

"It's not 'going on,' it was one time. Five months ago."

"Five months ago?" she was puzzled. "So what, did she find out-"

"No, I told her."

"Why?"

"I didn't wanna lie to her any more. I couldn't take the guilt."

Lisa sat down, her anger draining, replaced by profound sadness. That sounded more like the little brother she knew. She ran her fingers through her hair. "Rey. God, you stupid kid. And she kicked you out?"

"Yeah. Went to Connecticut and didn't come back till I moved out."

"Good for her." Rey drew in on himself but didn't say anything. "Christ. Tell me something, does every Curtis male just have a complete inability to keep it in his pants? What is it with all of you, is it genetic? First Pop, then Jorge, now you."

Rey shrugged.

"I mean, you of all people. How many times did Pop tear a strip outta you for mouthing off at him when he was out chasing skirts? You _swore_ you'd never be like him. I believed you."

"I believed me too," he said quietly.

Lisa stared at the floor, seeing a vivid image of Rey, eight years old. Glaring up at their father, lower lip jutting out, telling Pop exactly what he thought of his cheating, saying what all the rest of them refused to acknowledge and getting knocked around for his trouble. Their father hadn't been abusive by the standards of the time, but he lost it when his own son spoke to him with disrespect. Rey had suffered bumps and bruises and had even been whipped with a switch a few times, his small hand welted for hours afterwards. And it didn't make any difference to him, he still spouted off more often than not the next time Pop came home late smelling of another woman's perfume.

She recalled holding him close after a whipping, his little arms around her neck, skinny shoulders hunched with misery. Remembered his refusal to give in to angry tears, not for the pain of his injuries but for the pain their father caused their mother and for his own inability to do anything about it.

She recalled his utter disdain for their father as a teenager, having finally learned his lesson and no longer saying what he thought, but speaking volumes silently when Pop came home late at night. His tall lanky form eloquently expressing contempt through his body language. Dark eyes flicking from Pop to the clock and back, glancing over Pop's disheveled state in disgust until Pop had the grace to blush and leave the room.

She even recalled his indignation at their older brother a few years ago, when Jorge was almost literally caught with his pants down by his wife, carrying on an affair with one of her friends. His vocal condemnation of Jorge and support for Jorge's wife, when Jorge complained that 'the vengeful bitch' had filed for divorce. The high-volume fight they'd had over it that had resulted in rather tense family reunions for the next year.

And now here he was. Like father, like son.

"OK. Stay here," she said wearily.

"Nah, it's OK, I'll go back to the hotel, I'm paid up for tonight anyway-"

"Don't be stupid."

"I'm looking for my own place anyway-"

"Whatever. Christ, how could you do this. What's the matter with you," she said tonelessly. He shook his head, biting his lip.

"Does Mama know?" He shook his head. "Jorge?" Another shake. "Too ashamed to let'em know, aren't you?" He looked away from her. "This'll really make Mama's day. She raised two lowlife cheating bastards."

"All right, enough already," he said tiredly.

"What? You said the exact same stuff to Jorge when he got caught. Now all of a sudden it's OK for you?"

"No. But... you think you're saying anything new? You really think there's anything you can say to me that I haven't said to myself about a thousand times since... since about five minutes after I left that girl's apartment?"

Lisa ran her hand through her hair again, disgust warring with sympathy for his obvious remorse over the mess he'd made of his life. Feeling an instinctive impulse to comfort him, despite her anger at him. An echo of their childhood. "What did Deborah say? When she left?"

"She said the kids deserved-" his voice roughened and he stopped, clearing his throat before finishing. "Deserved better than me for a father."

She winced, silently agreeing with her sister-in-law but still hurting for her brother's sake. She put her hand on his arm. "Hermanito, shit. You've really gone and done it this time." She rubbed her forehead, then gently pushed him towards the spare room, forcing herself to put aside her anger. "Go, put your suitcase away. Stay here as long as you need to. This... this is your home too."

===

_Tuesday, November 21_  
_8:35 pm_

"Deborah?" Morelli asked, breaking the long silence in the room after Rey was done slowly, painfully recounting the events leading up to his affair and his decision to not confess to Deborah afterwards. Deborah stifled a sob, keeping her head buried in her arms, as she had throughout most of Rey's recitation.

"I'm sorry," Rey said softly. Deborah nodded, wishing she hadn't forced him to tell her. It didn't help, at all, to know the details of what had happened.

"You know," she said slowly when she could speak, "I, I keep thinking, how would I ever trust you. If we ever got back together. How could I get past that. I thought knowing might make it easier, help me understand, but..."

"Do you think about getting back together?" Morelli asked her after a moment. She inspected her nails for a long time before reluctantly answering.

"Yeah. Sometimes. I - I miss him," she admitted quietly. "The kids miss him. But..." she blinked away her tears, meeting Rey's eyes. "It's like my whole world's been turned upside down. How am I ever supposed to trust you again?" Rey twisted his wedding ring helplessly, unable to reassure her. "And... how am I supposed get back what I felt with you before? Or even how I felt about myself?"

"What do you mean?" Rey asked.

"I'm supposed to not take this like a blow to my ego?" she asked defensively. "I'm supposed to still feel secure? Still feel attractive to you?"

"You think you're not attractive? To me?" Rey asked, bewildered. Deborah looked away, embarrassed. "Jesus Christ. Sorry, Father," he said reflexively. "No, no, hon, come on..." he paused, gathering his thoughts. "I'm - I'm not gonna sit here in front of our priest and say how you make me feel, but... it didn't have anything to do with how I feel about you. You, you're... you're beautiful, hon," he trailed off helplessly.

"And what about when I'm not any more? How can I trust you to not ditch me when I get old?" she asked, hating the neediness in her own voice. "And even before that... how can I trust you to not do the same thing the next time you have a bad day?"

"I - I just... I wouldn't... baby, I couldn't do that to you. Not again."

"How can I trust that?" she said, her defensiveness starting to turn into frustration once more. "And how can I trust that if we do get back together you won't just think, what the hell, if you do it again, I'll forgive you, no problem?"

"What are you talking about, no problem? You think what you're putting me through is the only reason I wouldn't... Jesus." Rey rubbed his forehead agitatedly. "I - you think your world's turned upside down, you can't trust me - well, Christ, Deborah, you can still trust _yourself_, can't you?!" He stood up, nervously pacing the room.

"You want insecure, you want blow to the ego?! I had to tell our daughters that Daddy can't come home any more because sometimes when grownups do something really bad they're not allowed to be with their families any more. Yeah, and you know what Olivia asked me? Was I going to jail. 'Cause that's what we've talked about at home, that bad grownups get taken away from their families and put in jail." Deborah suppressed a desire to comfort him and he cleared his throat, turning away from her.

"I haven't been able to go into a church without feeling guilty, I haven't been able to look at myself the same way since that day. I couldn't - I couldn't even look the girls in the eye when I told them it was my fault they didn't have two parents any more. There is no way I would ever wanna feel like this again." He crossed his arms defensively, swallowed a few times.

"And, and as for you being attractive... Deborah, you're, you're beautiful. You'll still be beautiful to me when you're old. I'm not gonna walk out on you for a younger woman. You know me better than that, don't you?" She gazed at him, expressing her doubts through her silence. "Look, being one of those jerks with the dentures and the twenty-year old bimbo on their arm... that's Lennie's fantasy, not mine."

"So what's your fantasy?" she asked softly.

"I wanna grow old with you," he told her simply. "I-I wanna watch your hair go grey, I wanna be there the first time a little kid calls you Grandma. And I'd never do anything to screw that up. Not again."

Deborah gazed at him, uncertainty and mistrust battling with her desire to believe him.

===

_Wednesday, November 22_  
_8:04 pm_

"Flores did what?" Van Buren asked Jamie Ross in disbelief.

"Swear to god, he had a heart attack," Lennie answered her, laughing, "Right in IR#2. We're telling him we've got him dead to rights and he just keels over."

"What did you do?"

"Rey here hightailed it outta there like a bat outta hell-"

"Hey, I was calling EMS!" Rey protested, laughing.

"-and me and McCoy are standing there like village idiots, neither one of us knows CPR-"

"I told you you shouldn't have skipped your last mandatory training," Van Buren said. "So is he dead?"

"Nope," Lennie replied cheerfully, "he's at the hospital."

"Why is this good news?" Van Buren asked suspiciously.

"Over to you, Wonder Boy," Lennie said to Rey with a flourish.

"He confessed to the doctor at the hospital," Van Buren's eyebrows shot up, "I'm serious, I was right there, three feet away, and he told her everything!" they all shared a laugh.

"You think we can rig the IR to give all our suspects heart attacks?" Lennie suggested. "It really loosens them up." Van Buren rolled her eyes in amused irritation.

"This is what I miss by spending the day downtown with the brass. All the fun happens without me."

"Oh, it gets better," Rey said cheerfully. "The thing is, we hadn't arrested him for Shelley Ganz's murder this time, we'd arrested him for Jason Waxman's. He basically confessed to both."

"Who's Jason Waxman?"

"Another client for Beachwood Loan," Lennie explained, vastly amused. "See, we thought Steven Tashjian hired Flores to kill his wife, but what actually happened was, Bunny Russo, the owner of Beachwood Loan, had him do it. Whenever Russo's clients default, he kills them off to collect on their insurance. Or he forgives the debt if they kill off another client. It's like a barter system." Not for the first time in his career, Lennie was impressed with a brilliant criminal mind. If these guys put as much effort into good as they did into their scummy schemes, he thought, what a world this would be.

"Unfortunately, Flores didn't say Russo put him up to it, but it's a start," Jamie said. "I'm still going to draw up the arrest warrant for Russo."

"Good work," Van Buren said as they left her office. Jamie stopped by their desks, remembering something.

"Oh - um, this isn't going to be such good news, guys."

"What?" asked Lennie.

"Remember the Whatney case?"

"Girl went over the Brooklyn Bridge, that Neanderthal McDugan scared her into jumping?"

Jamie nodded. "Your star witness, Marsh, took the stand and said he remembered the girl smelling of alcohol and acting drunk. He completely changed his story for the Grand Jury, so McDugan got Assault Three."

"Son of a bitch!" Rey exclaimed, his good humour at their triumph with Flores evaporating.

"Could you go to Marsh's house tomorrow, please? Find out what happened?"

"You bet," Rey said grimly. Jamie nodded and left. "Son of a bitch. Cowardly son of a bitch-" Rey muttered as she walked off.

"Hey-" Lennie began.

"No, come on. He committed perjury. He let that girl down, just because he's too scared to face his wife. Probably figured out his little sideline would come out at an actual trial."

"Rey..." Lennie sighed. Here we go, Rey was gonna go off on yet another vitriolic rant. Some day, hopefully, Rey would learn that not everything deserved this kind of moral outrage. But in the meantime, Lennie often wished his partner came with some kind of OFF button, or at least a MUTE. So at least he wouldn't have to hear this kind of thing.

"What?" Rey asked belligerently. "What do you think his excuse is?"

"Maybe somebody threatened him."

"Right. You saw him that day - piece of scum-"

"Rey." Lennie's patience abruptly slipped away. "How's Deborah?" he asked deliberately, and Rey gave him a startled glance. Lennie watched his partner's expression warring between anger at him and a host of other emotions as he held Rey's gaze steadily. Don't give me the self-righteous crap today, Lennie thought, it's not gonna fly. He waited until Rey dropped his eyes, and tried for a more patient tone.

"I think somebody threatened him. Now, let's go pick up Russo, and we'll talk to Marsh tomorrow."

===

_Saturday, November 25_  
_8:04 pm_

"So they're all at the Rez for the weekend?" Lisa asked that weekend, pouring tea for their mother, who had come over for dinner.

"Yeah," said Rey. "That's why I had them a couple weeknights last week - Deborah wanted to take them to the Harvest Festival this weekend."

"Oh, that's a lot of fun. They've got so many great things to do over at that place." Lisa finished pouring their tea and sat down. "Now why couldn't we be rich Indians?"

"You are Indians," Mama smiled.

"_Rich_ Indians," Lisa repeated. "Not Peruvian Quechua. They're dirt-poor. And they don't run any fancy clubs."

"They might, in Peru," said Rey.

"No, they don't," his mother said. "That's part of why I came here, so my kids wouldn't be looked down on as Indians. Or as half-breeds. You don't know what it was like over there for us." Rey and Lisa nodded, not terribly interested in their mother's tales of racial injustice in the old country. She sighed. "Although back home..."

"What?"

Mama hesitated, then said reluctantly. "Deborah wouldn't have walked out on you, son." He dropped his eyes, and she continued. "I mean... how could she? It's not right. She - she took vows. She said 'in good times and bad.' This is breaking them."

"I vowed to forsake all others," he reminded her quietly.

"Two wrongs don't make a right." Rey shrugged. "Breaking up a family... taking children from their father... it's wrong. No matter what the father has done." Lisa abruptly got up, muttering something about needing to check on her laundry. Rey watched her go, wishing she'd stayed behind, but knowing it was probably a good thing she'd left. Respect for their mother was deeply ingrained in both of them, and Lisa had probably sensed she was about to say something she would regret. He sipped his coffee, trying to find a polite way of answering his mother.

"Would you say the same thing if she was the one who cheated on me? Would you expect me to just forgive and forget?"

"No, of course not. But... but men and women are different. Staying with just one woman isn't easy for a man. Deborah should know that."

Rey was torn between respecting his mother and defending Deborah's actions and his own beliefs. He fiddled with his coffee cup for a moment, then replied, "I don't believe that. Mama, being unfaithful is disrespect, no matter who does it. She's got a right to be angry about it."

"She didn't have to leave you. She could learn to live with it."

"Like you lived with Pop disrespecting you?"

"He didn't. He loved us." Rey shook his head. "Son... I accepted it. That's a woman's place."

"It doesn't have to be."

"I knew he loved us."

"He broke his vows to you, and to us. Over and over again. That's wrong. Deborah doesn't want our kids growing up with a father who doesn't take his vows seriously."

"Oh, for Heaven's sake," she said sadly. "You do."

"I didn't."

"You love her, and the children, and you are a good husband and a good father. You made one mistake, Reynaldo. And if Deborah can't see that, and can't forgive you, she's the one who's wrong. Not you." Rey stirred his coffee silently and his mother sighed.

"Son... don't let her convince you that you're not the man I know you are. Don't let her tell you that you disrespect her, or you don't love her, or your word doesn't mean anything to you. One mistake doesn't wipe out a whole lifetime of living up to your ideals."

Rey looked away, wishing his mother would just drop it.

"There's two sides to everything. Maybe there's a reason you did what you did, maybe, maybe she wasn't understanding enough, maybe she was too busy with the children-"

"N-no, don't, please," Rey interrupted, narrowing his eyes, struggling to keep his sudden anger at her in check. "Don't make excuses for me like you did for Pop." She bit her lip and stopped, studying her napkin for a long moment, then spoke up softly.

"I... I don't want to be cut off from my grandchildren. Not again," her voice broke and she covered her eyes. Rey looked at her, startled, as a tear trickled down her face. His mother was a firm stoic. The last time he'd seen her cry was... he couldn't even remember when. He was frozen for a moment, unsure of what to do. He hesitantly put his hand on hers.

"You're not... you're not cut off from them. It's not like when Jorge's wife left him. We're, we're trying to work things out. And even if we don't... Deborah's not taking the kids away forever, I'll still bring them to visit..." his words trailed off as his mother nodded and covered her face, trying to stifle her tears. "Mama, don't, please. Don't cry," he patted her arm ineffectually.

"I just wish... that even one of you three had had a happy marriage."

They were silent for a long time. "I'm not divorced yet, Mama," he said quietly.

===

_Monday, November 27  
9:03 pm_

"Oh hi Deborah," Lisa said into the phone. "Yes, he's here," Lisa held out the phone to Rey. Her face did not look like this was going to be a pleasant call.

"Deborah?" he said uncertainly.

"I just got a call from your boss," Deborah's voice snapped. "You're supposed to give her a call. I am not your fucking secretary."

"What?"

"You give her your new number and don't expect me to pass on any more messages for you."

"Deb-" she slammed down the phone. Rey stared at the receiver for a moment, then automatically punched in Van Buren's number.

"Van Buren," she answered crisply.

"LT, it's Curtis, you wanted to talk to me?"

"Oh - oh, right, yes, Jamie Ross wants to know about the visit to Marsh's house."

"Oh, sure," Rey said automatically, picking up his notes from that interview, forcing down his consternation at the anger in Deborah's voice. Why had that bothered her so much? Maybe he should've told Van Buren he'd moved out, but it just hadn't seemed necessary. She hardly ever called his home number, she called his cell. Had the batteries run out?

"Are you there?" Van Buren asked, and he abruptly remembered she was still waiting.

"Sorry, LT, hold on." He scanned his notes, refreshing his memory. What he mostly remembered about the interview was that he'd been terrifically uncomfortable facing this witness whom he'd almost beaten up a few weeks ago. And that wasn't what Van Buren needed to know. "He didn't say anything, but his wife said he got two calls late at night from some guy, went out for a long time. Lennie thinks somebody mighta threatened him. We're getting the LUDs."

"OK. Thanks, I'll let Jamie know," Van Buren said. "Good night."

===

_Tuesday, November 28_  
_1:03 am_

Damn. Sleep was elusive. That was happening a lot these days. Rey turned on the TV, tired of worrying about Deborah's extreme reaction to Van Buren's call, worrying whether it would derail the progress they'd made last week. Stop thinking about it, she's probably already forgotten it, he told himself, and started surfing channels. Flip flip flip, sports, flip, the Tashjian case on the news for a moment, flip, adult channel - no, flip past, he didn't want to see that.

Actually, maybe he should flip back to it, he mused as he watched a sitcom rerun without much interest. He could do what he'd done too many nights since his separation. It might help the insomnia, he was usually fairly sleepy afterwards. He and Deborah had often finished off the day by making love and drifting off in each other's arms.

He idly debated flipping back as the canned laughter continued on the insipid comedy. The problem was that he could never tell now whether he'd feel sleepy or even more dissatisfied afterwards, wishing he had Deborah there instead of this empty couch. Missing the tangle of her limbs with his until he was wide awake again, tossing and turning, brooding, infinitely pissed off at himself for having landed them both in this mess.

He wondered if Deborah felt like this. They were both young and healthy and had high libidos. Nice to have a strong sex drive when you were with somebody who did too, not so nice when you weren't with anybody at all. He wondered how Deborah was coping. No, don't think about that, his body started to tell him. Or if you are gonna think about it, at least do something about it while you're thinking.

He closed his eyes, tuning out the lame rerun, imagining Deborah. Did she toss and turn at night, did she miss him? Did she fantasize about him? When things were going well in counseling, did she let herself think that maybe someday he'd be back in her bed? And when they weren't going well, what did she do? Just turn her thoughts away, or fantasize about somebody else?

What would he do if some day she did more than just fantasize - if she actually found somebody else? He felt a stab of fear and sorrow. His wife with another man. His children with another daddy. And nobody to blame for that but himself.

Boy, was that ever a mood-killer. He opened his eyes and brought his attention back to the stupid sitcom. He'd just have to drink a lot of coffee tomorrow.

He remembered Lennie teasing him once about the single lifestyle, "Mr. Young Married, you don't know what you're missing."

"Yeah - late night reruns of I Dream of Jeanie," Van Buren had shot back.

I Dream of Jeanie, Gilligan's Island, and Laverne and Shirley, he thought ruefully. Yeah, I didn't know what I was missing, all right. I didn't appreciate what I had is more like it.

===

_9:15 am_

I really have to get my own place, Rey thought the next morning as he shaved in the precinct locker room. Not only was the couch in the spare room narrow and lumpy, he'd been woken up once again by his sister and her husband starting off the day with a rousing early morning exchange, to the tune of "quit yelling at me when I've got a headache" and "don't call it a headache when it's a hangover, and you slept through the alarm again, you sorry bastard." Rey had quickly dressed and ducked out before they got to the four-letter words.

"Phone company faxed the LUDs from Marsh's place," Lennie entered the locker room as Rey finished shaving and washed up. "Two calls to a number in Riverdale. One at 11:17, the other one the next night at 11:06," Lennie showed him the LUDs.

"Nancy Leary?" he asked skeptically.

"Maybe she's got a real deep voice."

"This I gotta see," he finished drying his face.

"Whenever you're ready."

"Hey, Lennie, almost forgot," Rey said, going to his locker and taking out a piece of paper. "My sister's number, I'm gonna be staying there till I get my own place."

"Rey, I'm sorry," Lennie said sympathetically, pocketing the small paper.

"Yeah, nothin's carved in stone," Rey shrugged noncommittally, putting on his shirt. "I'll wait and see."

"Right. It'll work out," Lennie said, not sounding terribly convincing, and left the locker room. Rey finished dressing. Sure. 'It'll work out.' That's why he needed to find a place of his own, because it was gonna work out. He closed his eyes and dismissed further thought about Deborah and his home situation. This wasn't the time or place, he was at work. What he had to think about now was this Nancy Leary person.

===

_2:34 pm_

"So we go to Nancy Leary's place and find out her son's father is Dave Randall," Lennie told Van Buren that afternoon.

"Should that ring a bell?" Van Buren asked.

"Only if you ever worked Arson. Randall the Candle. Not the most successful torch around, in that he's been caught a bunch of times, but part of his time was served with..." Lennie trailed off expectantly.

"Crazy Mike McDugan?" Van Buren guessed.

"That's why she's the boss, Rey," Lennie stated. "It's not just for her fashion sense."

Van Buren grinned. "Do you have anything else on him?"

"We're passing the info along to Ross and McCoy. See what they think. They'll probably want to haul him in for questioning."

"Good. Good work, guys," Van Buren nodded. As they stood to leave, Rey cleared his throat.

"Um, LT, just wanted to let you know, my number's changed. If you can't reach my cell, call me here." He handed her a small piece of paper and turned to leave.

Van Buren peered at the little piece of paper - Curtis, 555-7230. "When did you move? Where is this place?"

"About a month ago," he said offhandedly. "Manhattan."

"You moved your kids in the middle of the school year?"

He let out his breath in annoyance, and said evenly, "My kids didn't move. I did."

Her eyebrows went up and she looked from him to Lennie. Lennie quickly said, "We'll let you know what Ross and McCoy say about Dave Randall." His eyes warned her not to pry any more. She dismissed them and sat back, somewhat stunned. Rey had moved, without his kids - that must have been why his wife had sounded so odd yesterday. About a month ago? She picked up a pen and tapped it idly on her desk, wondering what the hell had happened. But Rey very obviously didn't want to talk about it, and Lennie obviously knew more than he was saying and didn't want to talk about it either.

About a month ago - oh, crap, that was around when Rey lost it on Marsh in the interrogation room, in this very case... Marsh, who wouldn't talk because he was... he was sleeping around on his wife.

There was obviously a hell of a lot going on there. And it really wasn't any of her business. Damn.

===

_8:00 pm_

"I think we need to draw up separation papers," Deborah began their session. Rey and Morelli gaped at her.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Rey said, confused, "Last week you're saying you've thought about getting back together, this week you wanna draw up papers?"

"I don't think you're taking this seriously-"

"Taking this seriously?! What the hell are you talking about?!"

"Why did your boss call our place to talk to you yesterday? How come she didn't know you weren't living there?"

"Why would she know?! It's none of her business!"

"You wanna pretend to the world that you're still a happily married man, you're still wearing that ring like it means something-"

"It _does_ mean something! To me!"

"Just because I said _maybe_, that doesn't - that doesn't mean it's not over. I-I won't be taken advantage of."

"Taken advantage of - for God's sake, Deborah-"

"I think we should sign a formal separation. If we're going to get a divorce, we need to be legally separated first-"

"Hold on, wait-"

"Deborah-" Morelli broke in.

"No! You talked me out of doing this right away, you said we should try counseling, well, we've tried counseling, and I've had time to think about it, and I think we need to do this. I, I want this over with, I want to get on with my life," she said, her voice trembling.

"This can't be over," Morelli said forcefully. "You have children together. You're married. It's not a matter of just walking away when you feel like it." Deborah glared at him. "It's just not that simple - for one thing, you may get a civil divorce, but you won't get an annulment."

"Why not?"

"I wouldn't go along with it, for starters. Adultery is sufficient to sue for legal divorce. It's not enough for the Church to grant an annulment."

"So what am I supposed to do when he-"

"You're supposed to stay married. Whether you choose to live together is your business, but you are still married in the eyes of the Church until death do you part, unless there were grounds for declaring that the marriage was invalid from the beginning."

"I'm trapped, is what you're saying."

"Unless you can prove none of it was real, yes. And normally the only way to do that is for both of you to say that there was some reason why-"

"I'm not gonna say it wasn't real," Rey broke in heatedly. "That would be perjury."

"Oh, you'll commit adultery, but not perjury. It's so nice to know where your moral compass lies. So if I wanted to remarry in the Church, you'd make sure I couldn't?"

Rey stared at her, too angry to be able to elucidate everything he thought about that. Wanting him to deny their whole marriage - throwing his adultery in his face yet again - the thought of her wanting to remarry...

"Deborah," Morelli said firmly, "I've been your spiritual advisor for seven years. I wouldn't be able to say that your marriage wasn't valid. It was. It is."

"It was based on a lie."

"_What_ lie?" Rey asked furiously.

"That you would never cheat on me."

"You think I was crossing my fingers when I took that vow?"

"Based on the fact that you did it, yeah, I'd say so."

"Christ, Deborah, I didn't mean to-"

"You didn't mean to do it? So your excuse is, Oops?" Rey glared at her. "You're just like my father and yours-"

"You think either of them woulda put up with this shit?!" he flung at her.

"This shit? What shit are you talking about? Counseling? Or me not rolling over and-"

"OK, OK, stop," Morelli said quickly. "Time out." They turned on him angrily and he carefully said, "I think we need to take a slightly different approach today. Rey, I'm going to ask you to leave for a little while, while I talk to Deborah. Then I'll talk to you, then if we have time we'll all get together again. OK?" Rey rose with alacrity, quite happy to leave and forcing himself not to slam the door.

Divorce and annulment. Where the _hell_ was this coming from? One week, and they had gone from talking about reconciliation to this. He was seized with a strong desire to throw something across the church.

He entered the chapel, hoping the soothing peace of the place would help him settle down. Found a pew, sitting down and putting his face in his hands.

After a moment, he knelt, crossing himself, and tried to sort out his thoughts.

God, I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this. I understand that I was wrong. I understand that she has a right to be angry. But it's getting really, really hard not to lash out at her. She's... she's being so unreasonable, so unlike herself. It's like every fight we've had over the nine years we've been together has come together, everything I ever disliked about her is all I get to see these days... and it's getting really hard to remember that I'm the one who started this mess in the first place.

Please, help me remember why I'm doing this. Help me be patient with her. Help me remember that it's not just us that's affected by this - that I have to keep trying for the sake of our children and our families. Everybody needs for me to work this out.

===

_Tuesday, December 5  
5:30 pm_

"Hey, Rey," Lennie checked his watch. "Don't you have counseling tonight?"

"Yeah, yeah, later," Rey muttered as they escorted Randall the Candle to the IR.

"Yeah, but you have to get the Flores report done before tomorrow. And Ross and McCoy are gonna be in on this, you don't need to be there."

"No, it's fine, I'll get the report done," Rey assured Lennie, going into the interview room. After this many months trying to figure out what happened to Karen Whatney, he sure wasn't going to miss being there for the interrogation of the person who'd intimidated their fine upstanding witness into changing his story. Especially when it seemed there was a lot more to the Whatney case than a simple driving error and a crazy bully. The theory - and it looked pretty good - was that Whatney's former employer, kindly old Harold Dorning, had hired Randall to torch his factory to avoid bankruptcy and collect the insurance. Whatney had found out about it, tried to blackmail Dorning, and he or Randall had hired Crazy Mike McDugan to terrorize her into shutting up. Or jumping off the Bridge. Now they just had to get one of them to admit to it. Rey checked his watch. 5:30 - he should still be able to finish up the report after this interrogation.

And then he could grab a quick dinner and get ready to go another round with Deborah. He sighed wearily, his heart heavy at the mere thought of that. Last Tuesday, he'd ended up spending most of their session in the chapel, while Morelli dealt with Deborah. Morelli had finally emerged, worn out, to tell him that Deborah had gone home and they would try again next week. He'd tried to be encouraging, but it was clear that whatever he'd been trying to get through to her hadn't worked.

So Rey had spent the rest of the week working on nothing cases, calling his kids at bedtime and getting the cold shoulder from Deborah. Taking them out on the weekend and getting the avoidance routine. Which should make tonight's session a real treat.

Faced with the choice of spending time with Deborah right now and interviewing a lowlife arsonist in the Whatney case... gee, which sounded more attractive?

===

"First one to raise his hand gets to plead to Murder Two and serve fifteen to life," McCoy told Dave Randall.

"Hey. Plead this," Randall said, grabbing his crotch. McCoy got up in disgust, motioning to Rey and Lennie to take Randall away.

"Rey, go on, I'll finish up," Lennie urged him as they took Randall back down to the holding cell. He hadn't cracked after all - he was just as scuzzy as McDugan, but apparently just a little smarter.

"Nah, that's OK, I'll finish typing up-"

"Rey, come on, get outta here. You don't wanna miss a counseling session - women really hate that."

Yes, I do want to miss this damn counseling session, thought Rey. I sure as hell do want to miss the opportunity to get yelled at.

"Yeah, that's OK. I'll just finish this up and go," he said.

===

_8:15 pm_

"Sorry I'm late," Rey said as he hurried into Morelli's office. "Where's Deborah?"

Morelli gazed at him for a minute, then sighed. "She went home."

"Home?" Rey asked, his heart sinking.

"I had to work very hard to get her to agree to come this week at all. When you were late, she... she decided there was no point."

Rey sat down heavily.

"Rey... she wants you to sign this. She's already signed." Morelli pushed a small sheaf of papers at him.

_NEW YORK QUEENS COUNTY, SEPARATION AGREEMENT AND PROPERTY SETTLEMENT_

Rey caught his breath. It looked so civilized. So bureaucratic. No hint that this was a document designed to destroy a family, destroy five lives. It might just as well have been a rental agreement or arrest report.

_This Separation Agreement and Property Settlement between Reynaldo Curtis, of Queens County, New York, hereinafter referred to as "Husband", and Deborah Louise Curtis, of Queens County, New York, hereinafter referred to as "Wife", shall become effective as of the date that it has been executed by each party hereto; WITNESSETH: THAT, WHEREAS, the parties hereto were married on March 12, 1990, and certain differences have arisen between them rendering it undesirable for them to continue to live together as Husband and Wife, by reason whereof they separated on October 16, 1996, and have agreed to live separate and apart permanently; and WHEREAS, there were three children born of the marriage; and-_ the page blurred before him and he put the papers down, then crossed his arms on Morelli's desk and put his head down.

The silence in the room was broken only by his laboured breathing as he struggled to not break down. Finally Morelli cleared his throat.

"For what it's worth... I don't think you being late today mattered. She was going to do this anyway - you being late was just an excuse."

Rey didn't respond. "You know, this doesn't mean it's over," Morelli said gently. "I think she needs to feel like she has some control over what's going on, and this may help, if anything."

Rey raised his head and looked at Morelli in weary disbelief. He shook his head and picked up a pen from Morelli's desk, ignoring Morelli's half-hearted platitudes. He skimmed through the agreement, found the appropriate line and signed, then stood up.

"Rey?"

"Thanks for all your help, Father," Rey said quietly. "Sorry it didn't work out." He stared at his wedding ring for a moment, then took it off.

"Here. Give that to Deborah when you see her," he said hollowly, and he placed it on the desk and left the office.


	4. Long Distance

**CHAPTER 4: LONG DISTANCE**

_Wednesday, December 6_  
_11:48 pm_

"I forgot to ask, did you get to your session OK last night?" Lennie asked the next night as they reached their new crime scene at the river's edge.

"Yeah, fine," Rey said shortly. "What do we have on this guy?"

"Uniforms found a guy dumping a body into the river, that's all I know."

"I love a slam dunk. Especially late at night," Rey got out of the car and they approached the body. Pretty straightforward, thought Lennie as he listened to the uniform. Apparently some dumb mook named Carl Thurston had been picked up from prison in Virginia that morning by his brother-in-law Ronnie. Carl was off to a great start reintegrating into the community, judging from the gunshot hole in Ronnie's stomach and the fact that Carl had been caught trying to get rid of his body.

They joined Carl in the squad car and, predictably enough, Carl began by asserting that it was all an accident. Pretty straightforward, thought Lennie again, suppressing a yawn.

"Detectives! There's something you oughtta look at," a young uniform poked his head into the car.

"What?" Rey asked.

"We found another one."

"Another what - body?"

"Actually, another two thirds. Female. No hands, feet... or head."

"Where was she?"

"About ten yards downriver from the first one. Caught beneath some underwater piling."

Lennie and Rey turned to their perp. "How many people you kill, Carl?" Lennie asked him curiously.

===

_Thursday, December 7_  
_9:30 am_

"LT, you're sure?" Rey asked as he and Lennie left the IR where their fine citizen was confined.

"Thurston was released yesterday. The other body's been in for 24 hours." Van Buren handed Lennie the fax she'd received from the Virginia prison and he sighed. So much for their slam dunk.

"And brother-in-law Ronnie was fresh when they found him," Lennie recalled. "As in, less than an hour."

"Can I see that fax?" Rey held out his hand for it, skimming through the preliminary report on Ronnie's body. "There's something there..." Lennie started to hand it to him, then stopped, nonplussed, as he realized that Rey's wedding ring was gone. Rey looked up at him questioningly, still holding out his hand. "Lennie? The fax?"

"Right," Lennie handed it to him quickly.

"You wanna get yourself a coffee or something?" Rey asked distractedly, now comparing the two documents. "Damn. No such luck."

"What?"

"I thought maybe there was an inconsistency, but I think it's just a typo. Anyway. Let's go see Rodgers, see if she's got anything else for us on the headless woman."

===

"We're talking about one very sick individual here, Rey," Lennie mused as they left ME Rodger's office.

"The perp?" Rey asked, grimacing in distaste. Not that most of the people they chased down were saints, but there was something really sick about a guy who had sex with a woman and then dismembered her while she was still alive.

"No, Rodgers," Lennie replied, and Rey chuckled.

"What makes you say that?"

"You have to be a little bizarre to go into that line of work, don't you think? Digging around finding semen and breast implants in headless torsos?"

"Hey, we're off to track down the headless torso's name by finding out who put those implants in her, so don't you think most people would say the same thing about us?"

"Point taken," Lennie laughed.

===

_Friday, December 8_  
_11:30 am_

"Carmella Raggo," Lennie said into the payphone. They'd tracked down every implant doctor in the city and had them contact all of their patients. All appeared to be alive, except for three: Carmella Raggo, Stacey Rudman, and Heidi Ellison. Lennie devoutly hoped the body wouldn't be Ellison; Van Buren said she was some sort of famous producer or something, dating some actor. Lennie smiled, remembering Van Buren's slight embarrassment when he and Rey smirked at her rather detailed knowledge of high society gossip. Anyway, famous murder victims were a monumental pain in the ass to investigate; too high profile, too much opportunity for public mayhem.

Rey scanned apartment listings dispiritedly as Lennie tried to track down their headless lady candidate. Upon closer examination of the separation agreement he'd signed, he was finding his housing options a little limited. Not that Deborah had been unfair at all when she decided how to split his salary, but it didn't leave him with much once she and the kids took their share. What was it somebody had said to Lennie once? If you wanna get rich, stay married. Paying for two households from one income sucked, especially considering New York rents.

Unfortunately, staying at his sister's place much longer was just not an option. He and his sister got along just fine, but her spare room couch and her husband were really getting on his nerves. Besides, it was way past time to acknowledge that, in spite of Father Morelli's reassurances, this was not a temporary situation. Even if Deborah did yet another about face, it was way past time to get a place of his own.

Brownlee, 555-2398. One of the only affordable one-bedrooms listed in Manhattan, close to the Queensboro Bridge out to the kids, but it seemed a bit too good to be true. He took out his cell.

"Miriam Brownlee," a breathless voice chirped.

"Yeah, I'm calling about the apartment you have listed in the paper-"

"Oh yes, it's still available," Brownlee said enthusiastically.

"Says here it's a one-bedroom?"

"Yes, well, it is, really - I mean, the curtain between the kitchen and the bedroom is just like a wall, really, and it's sooo cute too," Brownlee's voice burbled on and Rey sighed. Sure, one bedroom. Probably a lot like the places he and his friends lived in, in college - small and cramped, with 'creative' use of space - ie, the toilet in a closet and the living room turned into two bedrooms.

"No thanks, I'm looking for a real one bedroom," he said, trying to be polite.

"Oh, OK, good luck! Bye!" Brownlee chirped, and hung up. Rey put his cell phone away.

"What am I gonna do, Lennie?" he said, discouraged. "After I'm back out what I'm paying Deborah, I can barely afford a studio."

"As of two weeks ago, Carmella Raggo was dancing in a place called the Rialto on Northern Boulevard," Lennie told him, taking out his car keys. "So the split's a done deal?" he asked.

"Who knows. But this twist in the wind routine is getting tired," Rey said in disgust.

"I thought if you said enough Hail Mary's all was forgiven."

"God forgives you. Not your wife."

===

_10:30 pm_

"So did you ID the headless woman?" Lisa asked that night as they tidied the kitchen together after dinner.

"Nah," Rey muttered. Carmella Raggo was alive and well, stripping for a living and calling herself Monique, and Stacey Rudman apparently didn't answer her phone but was also alive. The only one they hadn't contacted yet was Heidi Ellison, who was supposedly on a private island near Bora Bora and couldn't be easily reached. Her assistant said she'd called Tuesday around 5:45pm from her gym, so tomorrow they were going to check out the private plane that was supposed to have taken her to the island and make sure she'd made it to the flight after her workout.

He glanced at his watch. 10:30pm. Damn, he'd missed calling the girls at bedtime again. He should probably e-mail Deborah to let her know that he might be late to pick up the girls tomorrow, depending on how long it took to track down the pilot.

"So what did you do the rest of the day?"

"Huh? Oh - did a search for another case." The Whatney case. The case that started the night that Deborah split and just wouldn't go away, he thought bitterly. They'd spent the afternoon searching for evidence tying Dorning to Crazy Mike McDugan or Randall the Candle, to no avail. And during the search Jamie had told them that some idiot judge had thrown out Enrique Flores' hospital bedside confession for the Ganz/Tashjian case, too. Rey sighed heavily.

"A new case?"

"Old one." He started to wipe the kitchen counters, brooding.

"Rey... what's wrong?"

"What?" Rey asked, slightly startled.

"You haven't said more than two words together in two days."

"I've been busy."

She pursed her lips, ignoring his brush-off. "You haven't called the girls at bedtime since Tuesday, either. And where's your wedding ring?" Rey continued to wipe the counters silently. "Nalo... talk to me, bro," she said gently, and Rey smiled slightly at her use of his old nickname. His childish rendition of his own name when he was a baby, which had stuck far past babyhood, but which none of them had used in years. He put the wipe cloth away before finally giving in.

"I took it off."

"The ring? Why?"

"Deborah served me with separation papers on Tuesday." Lisa made a small sound in her throat, putting down a pot half-washed. "I signed them."

"Why?"

"What was I supposed to do?"

"I... I thought counseling was going well." Rey shrugged. "So that's it?"

"Looks like it," Rey said heavily, and she sighed. "What? You're the one that said good for her-"

"I know, I know, it's just... I thought she'd forgive you, eventually, after she made you squirm for a decent amount of time." She picked up the pot again, started to scrub at it half-heartedly.

"Nope," he said dispiritedly. "Although Morelli keeps saying this isn't final, there's still hope, yadda yadda yadda. He actually said it might be helpful, give her a 'sense of control'," Rey blew out his breath bitterly. As if Deborah didn't have all the control already.

"It may help, you never know. Sounded like she was pretty civil when she called about the kids this weekend."

"Yeah, I guess so," Rey shrugged, tired of the topic. Tired in general. He glanced around the kitchen. Everything tidy, everything put away. "I'm gonna go to bed."

This would kill their mother, Lisa thought sadly as she watched him go. The apple of Mama's eye, heading towards divorce. Mama had been devastated to find out about Rey's informal separation, but she'd clung to the hope that it was just temporary. Hoping that just one of her children would go back to being her image of what a good Catholic should be: decent, church-going, happily married. Jorge's divorce and Lisa's own shaky childless marriage didn't make Mama very happy, although she tried not to be judgmental, but for years Rey at least had given her no worries, no feelings of guilt that maybe she hadn't raised him right. So much for that.

He'd been such a hell-raiser as a little kid. Their mother used to despair when he got into fights with other boys, mouthed off at the nuns at school, broke his toys. The only area of his life where he hadn't been a source of dismay to his parents and irritation and amusement to his older siblings was in his role of big brother, which he took very seriously, zealously overprotective of their littlest sister Josefina.

Then Josefina had died in a car accident when she was ten and he was twelve, and they'd all had a tough time with it, but it had hit him particularly hard. He'd been a different kid after that - a good student, well-behaved, respectful, serious. He still occasionally got into fights with the other kids, but nothing like before. And later, he'd done the usual college boy routine of rowdy parties and a long string of casual girlfriends, but still managed to keep a good average and attend church fairly regularly.

Then he'd met Deborah. Lisa had seen her little brother go from a handsome guy who flirted with every girl he met, a stereotypical college boy with a well-filled little black book, to happily married man, overnight.

He'd fallen for Deborah almost immediately, fallen hard and head over heels. She was the first - the only - woman he'd ever spoken of to Lisa. He'd asked her, two months after they'd started dating, whether she thought it was too soon to ask Deborah to marry him. She'd stared at him in amused shock, sure that this had to be a joke, but he was serious. He'd popped the question and Deborah had said yes, to the dismay of his college buddies who wondered what the hell had happened to him. And Lisa had never seen Rey so happy, so sure of anything. The day of their wedding, they both positively glowed. His college pals had to admit that he looked happy, even as they bemoaned the loss of his freedom and bachelorhood at such a young age.

And now he'd screwed all of that up. Just like his father and brother before him, he'd put some slut ahead of his wife and a cheap quickie ahead of his vows, and fucked up his marriage and his life.

Poor Mama. First Pop, then Jorge, and now Rey. This wasn't her fault, but she was going to blame herself. She always did.

God damn Curtis men, Lisa thought bitterly. Castration was too good for them.

===

_Saturday, December 9_  
_1:30 pm_

"You sure you don't mind?" Lennie asked Rey. They'd spent most of the day working already - going to the airport to find that Heidi Ellison never showed up for her plane to Bora Bora, then back to the precinct to tell Van Buren what they'd found and call Ellison's gym. Now they were going out to see whether a head a wino found in a bag belonged to Ellison.

"I need the overtime," Rey said casually.

"Yeah, but... you know, you can go see your kids if you want. I can do this myself," Lennie said as he parked.

"Nah," Rey said, getting out of the car. He'd kind of welcomed the work this morning, not too eager to see Deborah right now. The fact that she'd been uniformly pleasant on the phone ever since he'd signed the papers was grating on him somehow.

Lennie and Rey approached the site, bracing themselves. Ugh. There it was - the stench of badly decomposing human. It literally took your breath away, Lennie thought, trying as much as possible to breathe through his mouth.

"Lennie, you ever get used to that smell?" Rey asked, covering his mouth and nose.

"Never. Ever," Lennie replied. He glanced over behind one of the squad cars, where a young cop was bringing up his lunch, and nudged his partner. "Hey Rey, you know how you can tell who's the greenest cop at a gory crime scene?"

"How?"

"He's the greenest cop at a gory crime scene," he nodded towards the puking rookie, and Rey grinned. A uniform waved them over to a stairwell and Rey went down while Lennie went to talk to the poor bum, still sitting at the top of the stairs. Lennie nodded sympathetically while the guy stammered out his story, looking over as Rey finally came up with the bag.

"I - I was just looking for recyclables," the wino finished, still somewhat shaken. Lennie looked into the bag.

"I don't think this qualifies."

===

_Tuesday, December 12_  
_11:30 am_

"You've had a busy couple of days, haven't you?" Van Buren commented as she skimmed over Lennie and Rey's reports. They both smiled tiredly.

"It's all just good solid police work, Lieu," Lennie said modestly.

"Uh-huh," Van Buren said. "And a lot of luck. So how did you do on the leads Ellison's assistant gave you? Did you check out the ex-husband and her personal trainer?"

"Eddie Newman and Evan Grant? Well, we went to Ellison's apartment right after her assistant ID'd the head. Detective, uh," Lennie consulted his notes, "Miller, from the 1-6, was there - said Newman used to slap her around. She never pressed charges, but he was called there twice. So that's a possibility. But like the assistant said, it seems they were OK since their split. He's directing a movie at her studio, so they had to play nice. Besides, he's out in LA. We did find out she was alive at 7:30, called the doorman to let him know she'd be gone for a while. But nobody saw her leave, and her car was still in the garage. And she was killed in her apartment - probably on her bed, and sliced and diced in her tub."

"What about the personal trainer?"

"Evan Grant," Rey took over. "Looks better than the ex. The bag her head was found in didn't have any prints, but it came from a wine store around the corner from his gym."

"Does he have an alibi for that night?"

"Says he was out rock-climbing in New Paltz," Rey said skeptically. "Alone."

"He's also got a chip on his shoulder the size of Rhode Island," Lennie remarked. "And the secretary at their gym said that he and Ellison left around the same time the day she died."

"She couldn't say there was anything going on between them, but she did say that apparently Ellison got him a part in a movie."

"Good," Van Buren nodded. "And the Whatney case?"

"We arrested Harold Dorning a couple hours ago," Rey said, immensely relieved. Hell of a case, but it was finally winding down. "His son rolled on him - said he admitted to burning the factory down, told him Whatney was trying to extort him. We also arrested McDugan, still trying to find Randall."

"And the new one you caught last night?" Van Buren asked.

"Looks pretty simple," said Lennie. "Peter Triandos, found strangled with a Christmas decoration in his own home, 'tis the season. Old rich guy, pretty young wife..." Van Buren looked at Rey, waiting for him to defend the grieving widow. Lennie grinned. "Even our local Defender of Womanly Virtue likes her for it."

"Really?"

"He just doesn't wanna have to buy me another deluxe pastrami sandwich," Lennie explained. "We saw a picture of the happy couple and he actually bet she was his granddaughter." Van Buren chuckled at Rey's naivete and Rey smiled slightly, acknowledging their ribbing.

"So she looks good for it?"

"Best so far," Rey said. "Although she put on a pretty good act, crying and everything, and she wasn't actually home last night, she was at a night club. There's a few other candidates, like his butler and a bunch of college students who were there for some kind of dinner that night - Triandos was putting them through college. But we're pretty sure it'll come back to her."

===

_Thursday, December 14_  
_4:45pm_

It was coming back to the pretty widow, Lennie thought with some satisfaction a couple of days later, driving to Hogan Place. For a while there, it had seemed that the evidence was leading them away from her, since there had been some kind of tiff between Triandos and one of the college students' fathers. The guy had even swiped a black mink jacket from the Triandos home as he was being kicked out, although his son had brought it back.

Which was when Rey had noticed something a little hinky - the grieving widow, who had presumably been out during this little brouhaha, had been wearing a little black mink number when she came in. So unless she had two identical jackets, she had to have been home that night.

"So, after we talk to McCoy about Grant, you wanna start tracking the Mink Widow?" Lennie asked as he found a parking spot.

"We probably won't have time," Rey said dubiously.

"It won't take long," Lennie said, eager to go forward on the Triandos case, since the Ellison one was stalled. Shortly after talking to Van Buren on Tuesday, they'd found out that Evan Grant had an assault conviction against a girlfriend eight years ago and that Latent had found his prints in Heidi Ellison's apartment - on her vibrator. They'd gone to Grant's apartment to ask him to submit to a blood test to match against the semen, but found that he'd left for LA, presumably for a job. They'd tried to get in to see McCoy about getting an order to track him down, but McCoy had been tied up in court and they'd been tied up with the Triandos case, so this was the first time they'd been able to get together.

"Come on, we'll just talk to her limo driver, it won't take that long," Lennie urged.

"I gotta go early today though," Rey said. "Olivia's school is putting on their Christmas play at 6:30."

Lennie grimaced. While Rey's separation meant that he could put in a lot more overtime, sometimes it was a pain in the ass because what time he did spend with his kids usually wasn't flexible.

"Deborah's not going to the play?" Lennie asked curiously.

"No, she's going too."

"And that's OK?"

"Yeah, why wouldn't it be?" Rey asked, a little puzzled. Lennie shrugged, going into Hogan Place. Maybe Rey's counseling was good for something after all - you wouldn't have caught Lennie and his ex in the same place for any money after they went their separate ways.

Rey followed Lennie into the building, realizing that maybe that was a little weird, going to a social function with somebody you'd just separated from. But it hadn't seemed like a big deal when they talked about it. In fact, everything had been pretty low-key since Saturday evening, when he'd finally spent some time with the girls and ended up having to interact with Deborah as well. It had been OK. Their counseling session on Tuesday had gone smoothly too, as they discussed him taking the girls for the whole weekend once he had his own place.

Deborah seemed to be going out of her way to be polite and pleasant, ever since they'd signed those damn papers. As mature and reasonable now as she had been childish and irrational before. While that had bothered him at first, now he was starting to appreciate it. Life certainly was more pleasant when your wife didn't always look at you like you'd wrecked her life or speak to you in a voice that could freeze stone.

Maybe she did need a sense of control. Maybe being separated was a good thing, for now.

And maybe going to a school play, like they did when they were a real family, would remind Deborah of how good things were when they were together. And if she got enough reminders, maybe eventually she wouldn't want to be separated any more.

Maybe he should stop wishing she'd come around and just be grateful that she was willing to let him spend more time with his kids. Just concentrate on trying to be the best part-time father he could be, try to compensate for not being there every day by just trying to be there as much as he could.

Or maybe he should just look forward to seeing his daughter on stage, seeing if she remembered the lines he'd helped her memorize on Sunday.

Rey dismissed Deborah from his thoughts as they went into McCoy's office.

===

"Don't forget I gotta leave early, Olivia's got that play at her school tonight," Rey reminded Lennie as they entered the precinct after their meeting at Hogan Place. Productive meeting - McCoy had suggested they fly to LA and confront Grant. Request the blood test in person.

"Yeah, no sweat, I'll type up the interviews," Lennie said, taking out a newspaper. "He-e-ey, LA Today: 78 and sunny. Can't hate that. Maybe this guy'll fold right away and I can take you out to Santa Anita. Or maybe they're running in Hollywood Park. Which, by the way, is nowhere near Hollywood."

"Hey, pack your bags, Borough approved," Van Buren called out from her office.

"When?" Rey asked.

"8:00 tonight."

"Unbelievable," Rey said in disgust, sitting on his desk. The wheels of justice grind slowly - except when they suddenly run over what little personal life you have left.

"What, tell 'em it's work, Olivia'll understand."

"But that ain't gonna do it."

"Rey, all I know is you're young, unattached, devilishly handsome, and we're going to LA," Lennie said enthusiastically. "If that isn't destiny, what is?"

Rey picked up his phone to call Olivia. Yeah, she'd understand. She'd understand that the father she hardly ever saw any more couldn't even make it to her play. Damn it.

===

_Friday, December 15  
11:10 pm_

"Hey this is police business - will you just open the damn gate?" Lennie asked the gate guard at Mattawin Studios the next day. He was hot and tired from spending hours in a cramped airplane seat, disoriented from the bright sunlight, and this asshole was giving them a hard time.

"I don't take orders from you. And you're not making any friends with that salty language," the guard said importantly. "Now pull over there." Rey laughed at Lennie's disgust. He was just as tired, but amused at Lennie's exasperated scowl. It was so rare to see Lennie lose it.

"Can you see about getting that damn cell phone of yours to work out here?" Lennie asked as he parked the car. Rey flipped it open, shaking his head at Lennie's technical ignorance.

"It's not rocket science, Lennie. You just transfer the number to a new location. And watch your salty language," Rey ducked the slap Lennie threw at him and grinned as he waited for their contact at Mattawin to pick up.

===

"Detectives Briscoe and Curtis? Hi, sorry I'm late," called out a pretty young woman as she drove up in her cart to where they were waiting, still outside the studio gate. She got out, shaking hands with Lennie as she introduced herself. "I'm Leesa Lundquist, VP of Production," she shook hands with Rey and Lennie noted with amusement that her eyes seemed to get a little sparkle as she gave Rey a discreet once-over. And, even more amusing, so did Rey's. "Ben Hollings wanted me to personally escort you. Just leave your car there and we'll take the cart."

"I don't think we can all fit, though," Rey said, eyeing the small cart.

"Oh, sure we can, come on, get in," Lennie shoved him in next to Lundquist, and got in next to him. "All right," he nodded with satisfaction, enjoying Rey's discomfort as adequate payback for the 'salty language' crack.

===

_3:12 pm_

"If she doesn't get that court order, I'm gonna bust Grant in the nose and let him bleed on my shirt," said Rey in frustration a few hours later.

They'd gone to see Grant, who was training some actress Rey had never heard of, but sure seemed to thrill the hell out of Lennie. Grant had declined to give them a blood sample. No big surprise. He had given them a credit card receipt for the hotel he'd stayed at that night, but he couldn't account for his whereabouts between leaving the gym at 6:50pm and checking into the hotel around midnight, other than "I drove to New Paltz, got lost, had some dinner". And he had a bandage on his neck that covered what he said was a climbing injury, but looked like scratch marks to Lennie and Rey.

It looked very good. They were very close. A blood sample would nail it down. But Jamie Ross said they had to wait for a court order.

Damn lawyers.

"Can I ask you a favour?" Leesa spoke up.

"Sure," Rey smiled at her.

"Feel free to say no. We're developing a script about New York City detectives. If you could just take a look at it, and tell me what you think?"

"I'd be happy to," Rey thought of something and turned to Lennie. "Um, you know, we should probably talk to Eddie Newman while we're waiting for Ross."

"Go ahead, we - we can discuss it when you're done," Leesa said apologetically.

"Hey, why don't you take him to dinner, go ahead, pick his brain all night," Lennie said helpfully. Rey looked from Lennie to Leesa quickly, startled and off-balance.

"That would be great," she was smiling at him. "I don't expect you to do it for free - we can work out some sort of consulting fee?"

Rey swallowed hard, terrifically uncomfortable with the situation Lennie had put him in. He managed a smile for her. "Not eating with Lennie is payment enough."

He impatiently suppressed his unease at the thought of dinner with this woman. It was just payback. She'd not only let them into the studio and taken them to Grant, she'd also told them Eddie Newman was directing the star who was now using Grant as a personal trainer. And she'd agreed to find out whether Ellison had indeed agreed to get Evan Grant a movie role or not, and what had become of that. So she wanted to pick his brains about cops. Tit for tat, fair was fair.

Never mind that she'd also been sending out little signals at him the whole time. Never mind that he'd found himself reaching for his non-existent wedding ring a bunch of times to remind himself that he shouldn't send any signals back. Like he'd done a million times over the years since he'd gotten married. It was a common enough situation: you meet an attractive woman, you feel a little something, you're pretty sure she feels a little something, you remind yourself you're married and it doesn't go any further than that.

Except that the absence of that damn ring was a vivid reminder that it had gone much farther, once. And for that very reason, he couldn't really remind himself he was married. Because he wasn't, really.

It's just dinner, he told himself impatiently. Relax.

===

_Monday, December 18  
7:00pm_

Rey punched in Deborah's number, hoping she'd be in. They'd been missing each other the whole weekend, so he hadn't had a chance to talk to the kids since he'd left. Not that he'd had much time to worry about that - he and Lennie had been running around LA for the last couple of days, trying to do what they could for the Ellison murder. Talking to her ex and her shrink, still waiting for that court order for Grant.

The ex, Eddie Newman, had described Ellison in glowing terms, and seemed pretty blasé about the idea of his ex-wife being involved with Grant. Pretty blasé about working in the same studio as Grant, too. Which sounded odd to Rey - he couldn't imagine anyone wanting to work even indirectly with a man who was sleeping with his wife or ex-wife. The mere thought of that made Rey's skin crawl.

Newman also claimed to have been with his shrink the night of Ellison's murder. So they'd gone to see the shrink. Who, incidentally, was also Ellison's shrink, and had done counseling for both of them before their split-up. The guy confirmed Newman's alibi, but wouldn't give them any information about Ellison and Grant. Claimed that was privileged.

Damn doctors.

They'd finally gotten a court order for Grant, then got the blood - and immediately had it whisked away by some hotshot lawyer, hired by some star who was friends with Grant.

Damn celebrities.

Consequently they hadn't really had time for anything so minor as calling Rey's kids or even going for that dinner with Leesa Lundquist. Although he was supposed to go to dinner with her today. Rey glanced up at a knock on his door. Lennie.

"TV in my room's not working," said Lennie.

"Help yourself. Ross says they'll be going at it with Grant's lawyer tomorrow morning."

"Curtis residence," Deborah's voice came on the line.

"Hi... Deborah," he still had to stop himself from automatically calling her by any of the endearments they had used with each other for years, he realized irately. You call your wife hon, or baby, or whatever. Your co-parent who is rapidly becoming your ex-wife is just Deborah.

"Hi Rey," she answered, "How are you doing?"

"I'm OK, you?"

"Good, good," she answered politely.

"Uh, listen, can I speak with Olivia please?"

"Um - Rey, it's past bedtime. Did you want me to wake her up?"

"No, no, don't, don't wake her up, I forgot about the time difference. How did she do at the play?"

Deborah laughed, "Oh, she did pretty good. She was a little bit nervous, but she was good."

"Oh that's good. That's good."

"Yeah, you could actually hear her, not like the other kids."

"OK. Um, listen, can you just - please tell her I was thinking of her and, and, let the girls know I love 'em." It was so inadequate compared to what he wanted to say. How could he really be a father when he wasn't in their lives every day any more?

"Of course. I'll tell her."

"Thanks."

"They know you love them, Rey," Deborah paused for a moment. "We all do. Good night," she said quickly and hung up, and Rey felt his eyebrows rise in surprise.

"Good night," he answered the empty line automatically and hung up, somewhat puzzled. 'We all do'? What was that supposed to mean - argh! He put his head in his hands, laughing at himself. God, what the hell was life coming to when you were analyzing what your wife said for hints about how she was feeling from across the continent. When you couldn't even take a throwaway comment at face value. Of course they all knew he loved them, and that included Deborah. It didn't mean a damn thing. The problem wasn't whether he loved her or not, and whether she knew it or not, the problem was that she felt she couldn't trust him.

"The kid'll be OK," Lennie told him, oblivious to Rey's confusion. He turned back to the TV. "Rey!" he turned up the volume and they watched a spot on the news about their case.

"...Mattawin executive Heidi Ellison. Sources tell KNBC News the investigation has moved to LA, where New York City detectives have questioned unnamed suspects and appear to be close to an arrest."

"We are? Oh good!" Lennie quipped.

"Where do they come up with this crap?" Rey asked. It always made him wonder, every time one of his cases wound up on the news, how wrong the reporters got the story. Made him doubt everything he saw in the media.

"Ah, beats me," Lennie answered, getting up to turn off the TV. "So uh, what time is Leesa picking you up?"

"Oh, damn, I forgot." Right, dinner with Leesa. He suddenly realized he wasn't even dressed. "You know what, she doesn't know what room we're staying in - you wanna keep an eye for her while I get ready?" He took a shirt out of a drawer. Getting ready for a date, god he hadn't done this in years. Hopefully he could remember what to do. Clean shirt, shave... anything else? "See what you got me into?" he asked Lennie, irritated.

"Yeah, I got you a date with a good-looking woman, I'm a real sonofabitch. Here she is," Lennie called out from the door. Crap. Hadn't combed his hair - well, it was short enough it didn't need combing... aftershave? Uh... tie or no tie? No, ties were for work. Brush teeth?

"Rey's just...powdering his nose," he heard Lennie say to Leesa, then heard them talking to each other as he finished up. OK, good enough, he decided, feeling inexplicably nervous and giving himself a mental shake. He left his room.

"Hi."

"Hi," Leesa smiled at him, and he smiled back.

"Uh, Leesa's got an idea," Lennie explained that Leesa thought they might be able to get a good deal at a better hotel, and the awkwardness of the whole date scenario was covered by their calling the other hotel and making arrangements to go there. Thank god - this flea-fest had not endeared either one of them to it. They deposited their things at the new hotel - much, much, much better class, Lennie practically salivated at the luxurious room - and then dinner couldn't be put off any more.

And then they were off to the hotel restaurant. On a date. Like he was sixteen or something.

===

"That sounds pretty good," Rey commented as Leesa finished telling him about A Tale of Two Yogis, the children's film that Eddie Newman was directing. "I'll have to take my kids to see it when it comes out."

"You have kids?" Leesa was slightly surprised.

He hesitated for a moment. "Three girls." He caught her glance at his hand, looking for a wedding ring.

"How old?"

"Six, four, and two," he said, smiling. "You have kids?"

"No, I've got my career. And a cat," she joked. He chuckled. "Must be tough being away from them." He shrugged. "How does your uh... wife feel about you being on a long trip out of town?" she asked delicately.

"We don't make trips out of town very often," he said, extremely uncomfortable.

There was an awkward moment before Leesa apparently decided it wasn't any of her business and picked up where they'd left off. "I'm just glad it's being made. Kids' movie or not, it's wonderful to actually have something in production."

"What do you mean?"

"We spend most of our time just scouting, and hearing pitches, and turning them down. Finding reasons to turn them down. It's bizarre," Leesa said pensively. "When I first started, I wanted to make great movies. Then it was just good movies, and... now I'm happy if any movie gets made. Truth is, we're in the business of not making movies." They chuckled, and he sipped his wine. "Well, listen to me," Leesa said self-deprecatingly. "Aren't the rules of the game I get you to talk about yourself? Here I am, talking about me?"

"Don't stop on my account, I - I think it's interesting."

"What's interesting is you don't act like you need your ego flattered." Leesa smiled, "No one's tried that one on me yet, it's very attractive." She ducked her head shyly.

"I'm glad I haven't lost my touch," Rey teased.

"No you haven't, Detective Curtis," she said, her voice low, and Rey smiled but looked down, discomfort vying with unexpected pleasure at hearing that tone in her voice.

"So I hope, uh, Lennie wasn't too offended that we didn't ask him to join us," Leesa said, breaking the suddenly heavy silence.

"Are you kidding?" Rey grinned, a little relieved. "When he found out he had a Jacuzzi in his room he forgot all about us," they shared a laugh. "We really appreciate all you've done for us. It's been a big help."

"Believe me, you'll be a bigger help to me if you can save this script from the banal."

"Ninety percent of all police work is banal."

"Read it. If you have ideas, you could come on as technical advisor..."

"I'd do it for nothing," Rey said easily.

"That is so refreshing."

"Forget it. More wine?" he offered.

"Absolutely," she grinned.

===

"So if you need anything else you got my numbers, right?" she asked him as they left the restaurant.

"Yeah, all seven of 'em," he teased, and they shared a laugh, Leesa leaning against him, a little bit tipsy.

"I know. It's ridiculous." She steadied herself as they reached the curb. "OK. Thanks. Thanks again." They stood awkwardly for a moment, neither one really knowing how to end an evening that had teetered between business and flirtation the entire time. Then she looked down, opening her purse, "Just find my valet ticket..."

"Oh, you - you have your car," Rey remembered.

"Yeah, I - I showed you the way here."

"Leesa, I don't think you should drive," he said, and she looked a little startled, then smiled.

"Oh, you'll just have to believe that I - I didn't plan it this way, OK?" She drew closer to him, and he felt a shiver run through him as she ran her fingers up his arm and he caught the scent of her perfume. Move away, he told himself half-heartedly, this isn't supposed to happen... but somehow he was moving closer instead.

She touched their lips together and oooh, that felt really, really good. He instinctively started to respond, enjoying the softness of her lips, the excitement of her body heat just from this slight contact, the promise of more - and then his brain finally kicked into gear and he pulled back, murmuring, "OK, wait, wait-"

"Because you're married, I'm sorry-" she began regretfully.

"Actually, I've been separated for two months. I'm really attracted to you..." boy was that the understatement of the year. He felt better than he had in a long time - nice woman, smiling, attractive, interesting conversation, no complications, no fighting... just like how things had been with Deborah for so long.

"No, I understand..."

"I'm, I'm just, trying to sort some things out right now." With Deborah, he reminded himself firmly. The mother of his children. The woman there was still a chance he could stay married to.

The woman whose face he was having a little difficulty remembering at this particular moment in time.

"I'll get a cab," Leesa said easily, then seemed to realize something. "Oh damn. I have this breakfast meeting at 7 am tomorrow on the other side of town, and if I go home, I'm gonna have to come back here at 5:30 to get my car."

Lead us not into temptation, Rey thought in dismay as he tried to keep his resolve firm. Now what? He thought over options quickly. Well, they did have two rooms paid for... "Take this, it's my room key, 912, it's all yours," he handed her his key. "I'll stay with Lennie."

===

Lennie swore under his breath as he got out of bed to answer the door. Who the - oh. Rey. What the hell?

"Hi, sorry - did I wake you up?"

"No, I hadn't gone to sleep yet. What's going on?"

"Um, Leesa's, uh, she had a bit too much to drink, so she's gonna - I told her she could stay in my room. You mind if I stay here?"

"Oh - sure, no problem." Lennie motioned to Rey to come in, and went to the linen closet to get him sheets to put on the couch. "She couldn't take a cab home?"

"Nah, she's got a meeting like really early tomorrow morning, she didn't want to leave her car here and have to come back for it."

"So... how'd it go?" he probed as Rey started to arrange the sheets.

"Good, good," Rey grinned.

"Nice dinner?"

"Yeah, really nice."

"She the only one who had too much?" Lennie smirked. He hadn't seen Rey this relaxed in a long, long time.

"Uh..." Rey thought for a moment, "Nah, not really - I'm just not used to wine. I usually drink beer," he chuckled a little sheepishly. "Besides, I didn't have to drive anywhere. She did."

"You glad you went?"

Rey grinned and said nothing. Lennie smiled to himself. His partner was looking pretty happy - happy even for a normal person, which, for Rey, was the equivalent of giddy. And considering how down Rey had been lately, this was a huge improvement.

"Come on, you can't leave it like that," Lennie said, "I set you up, I get to hear the details."

"Yeah, OK, OK, I had a nice time on my date," Rey laughed, "And that's it, Lennie. I don't kiss and tell."

"Is that just an expression, or is that a little more information than you meant to give?" Rey shook his head, amused but not rising to the bait.

"We had a nice time," he repeated as he took his shirt off.

"Not that nice," Lennie teased. Rey glanced at him questioningly. "Hey, if it had been that nice, you wouldn't be staying here."

"Why not?"

"She would have asked you to stay in your room too, Rey?" Lennie said with mock patience, realizing it was too cool in the room for just sheets and going back to the closet to get a blanket. "That's how things often work out on dates, you know."

"Oh, she did. Well, she didn't, but she wouldn't have minded if I'd stayed. I just - you know, it wouldn't have been right."

"What?!" Lennie exclaimed in dismay as he took the blanket out of the linen closet. Now he'd really heard everything. "She wanted to shack up, and you turned her down?"

"I told her I was married," Rey tucked the sheets into the couch.

"Why?! Rey, you should not disappoint this woman. I mean, she's provided valuable information. And she looks great."

"Come on, I'm not gonna take advantage of the situation," Rey protested, getting ready for bed. "She didn't plan on getting drunk."

"Oh no? She's a woman, Rey, and she's a Hollywood player. She started strategizing the minute she saw you," Lennie trailed off as Rey took the blankets from him and lay down on the couch. Rey wasn't listening. "Besides, if we get that court order, we're back on the plane to New York and that's it."

"Good night, Lennie," Rey said firmly, and turned out the light.

Lennie gave up and went to bed, annoyance warring with amusement. "She didn't plan on getting drunk" - Rey had to be one of the most clueless men he'd ever met when it came to women. He'd noticed it in the course of their work, that Rey's first reaction to any woman was always naïve belief. He was willing to go after female suspects once he'd been proven wrong, but Lennie and Van Buren, who both had enough cynicism about women to make James Brown proud, had often teased him about it. When it came to women, Rey had a blind spot big enough to hold a Mac truck. Deborah must have had a very happy marriage before Rey's affair.

'She didn't plan on getting drunk.' That poor girl had to be wondering what the hell just happened. Lennie hadn't missed the way she'd beamed at Rey when they first met, like a kid with a new toy. She'd practically glowed TAKE ME NOW at him. And Rey had definitely been interested, but Lennie knew he'd need a little nudge in the right direction, since Rey seemed permanently stuck in look-but-don't-touch mode. So he'd nudged - hell, he'd practically shoved - them into a date, and now... there was his partner, sleeping on his couch in this damn hotel, while this beautiful, available, _willing_ woman slept alone two floors down.

Unbelievable. What was it Donnie Cragen said? Unbefreakinlievable.

Once again, Lennie wondered how the hell that girl in the Park had ever managed to score with Rey. Just how traumatized he must have been that day to even notice her. She must have had all the subtlety of a Times Square hooker. Or maybe not - maybe that was what had gotten through to Rey. Maybe after all the obvious and easily deflectable come-ons he got, she'd done something different. Maybe she'd pretended she was a lesbian. No, that would probably offend Rey rather than turn him on, as conservative as he was. Maybe she'd spiked his drink or something. Agh, who knew.

That poor girl, alone in Rey's room. She probably had no idea what hit her.

Inexplicably, Lennie found himself recalling a line from Zorba the Greek, which he'd seen with some very artsy girlfriend in college. "God is forgiving, but there is one sin that he will not forgive. If a woman calls a man to her bed, and he will not go." Maybe he should tell that to Rey, Rey being so concerned with God and all.

Maybe not. He chuckled, thinking of the trademark dour, humourless look Rey would give him if he shared that particular piece of movie wisdom. No, definitely not.

===

_Tuesday, December 19  
9:30 am_

This must be why Rey was so happy to be married, Lennie mused the next day. Good-looking his young partner might be, but he must not have actually gotten anywhere with anybody before meeting his wife. Because here was his idea of how you impress a girl: have her take you out to dinner, leave her alone in your hotel room, and then ask her to let you pick through her garbage.

They'd woken and found out that the judge had quashed the court order for Grant's blood. They were somewhat dismayed to have wasted all those days in LA until Rey remembered the scratch marks on Grant's neck the first day they saw him, and the fact that Grant had tossed his bandage into a trash can after showing them the wound. So Rey had the bright idea to go rooting through the studio's garbage.

And Leesa Lundquist seemed as charmed by that as by everything else that Rey had done. Lennie suppressed a sigh. Nice enough girl, but apparently not too bright.

"Well, I don't know what it is, but you guys get a better class of garbage out here," Lennie remarked as he rooted through the dumpster. Coffee grounds, fast food wrappers, and paper. A few videos here and there. Not as many crack pipes and used condoms as Lennie usually dug through. Ooh, and one of the videos was for a movie that had just come out in the theatre.

"I think I got it," Rey said from behind him. He gingerly picked away some soiled tissues, and exposed a bandage with a spot of blood in the middle.

===

_1:00 pm_

"Quite a boat," Rey noticed one of the pictures in Leesa's office, where he and Lennie awaited the results on the blood test for the bandage. "Whose is it?"

"Mine," Leesa said with pride. "It's a Catalina 42."

"How far can you go on it?"

"On this boat? You can go around the world. If you had more time I'd take you out for a sail," she smiled at him. The phone rang.

"Lundquist." She listened a moment. "Yeah, he's here. Lennie? Hold on," she told the person on the phone as Lennie hurried over.

"Yeah," Lennie said into the phone. Pause. "Thanks. We'll wait here." He hung up. "Grant's prints were on the bandage. His blood's a match for the semen," he said with satisfaction.

Good. They got him. And now they could... they could go home.

Rey looked at Leesa, reading concealed disappointment in her face. Realizing abruptly that he probably looked the same way.

No, that wasn't right. He shouldn't be feeling this. Even though it had been pretty nice to be around somebody who wanted him there. And it didn't feel so nice to think of leaving her.

She's an LA movie producer, you're a New York cop, he reminded himself. You're from different worlds. It's not like anything could've actually developed. Besides, you're married.

He realized as he left her office that the last point had seemed like an afterthought.

===

**Author's Notes for Obsessive People Like Me: **This chapter contains a scene from the LA Trilogy ep D-Girl, where Rey mentioned that he'd been separated "for about three months." Which is a really neat trick if you follow the actual black cards, since by canon he counted November 16 to December 18 as three months. In my story, he said "two." _My_ Rey can count.

Oh and I really apologize for the confusion caused by two Lisa's in this story. Rey's sister was never named in the series, but I named her Lisa a long time ago in another story. Had I known that someday I would be writing about a time in his life when Rey stays at his sister's place for a while and meets a character named Lisa Lundquist, I would have named the sister Beulah or Azimuth or something. Mea culpa. I've respelled Lisa Lundquist's name Leesa in order to avoid confusion and unintentional squickiness.


	5. Temptation

CHAPTER 5: TEMPTATION 

_Wednesday, December 20_  
_9:32 pm_

"So... how was LA?" Deborah asked the next night, after Rey had put the kids to bed. He'd landed in New York that morning and asked to come and spend some time with the girls before their bedtime. He picked up a Barbie that had been left on the floor, put it in its proper bin.

"Good. Well, you know, we got what we went for."

"Think Grant'll be convicted?"

"Yeah, he should be. He lied about being with her, has a record for violence, motive - yeah, should be easy." Rey looked around the living room. No other toys lying around, everything tidy. He leaned tiredly against the couch.

"So what did you do over there?"

"Oh, you know, chased down leads, waited for a court order.... hung out."

She smiled. "With the stars?"

"That part's not that thrilling, believe me. Although Lennie was pretty excited about meeting Shane Perry."

"Shane Perry? That's interesting." Rey nodded. He supposed it was. He glanced around the living room, thinking tiredly that he and Lennie were going to have to do a hell of a lot of work on the Triandos case in the next few days, trying to track down Mrs. Triandos' movements the night her husband was killed. What a pain.

Although maybe the case would be interesting. Maybe there would be a couple of twists to it, like the twist they'd found out from Jamie Ross about the Whatney case. Apparently kindly old Mr. Dorning had not, after all, hired Randall the Candle to torch his own factory, then hired Crazy Mike McDugan to take out Karen Whatney. It had been his son, who'd used part of his father's insurance money to help start up his own business. Very nice. Wasn't there some Shakespeare line about how sharper than a serpent's tooth was an ungrateful brat or something...

"...any other behind the scenes stuff? Did you get to see anything being filmed?" Deborah's voice jarred him out of his train of thought and he brought his attention back to her. Man, he should get some sleep, he was starting to zone out.

"Yeah, we talked to Eddie Newman, the vic's ex-husband? He's directing a kid's movie. With Shane Perry."

"Ooh, that'll make the girls really excited when it comes out."

"Yeah, Daddy interrogated the director of their new movie," they chuckled together. "Oh, and I got to see a screenplay." Deborah's eyebrows went up in surprise. "Yeah, this movie executive asked me to read it over, it's a cop thing." He suddenly felt a little uneasy talking about it. Deborah gazed at him, sensing something off.

"Why you?"

"Inside view, realism and all that," he said, trying to keep his voice casual.

"Rey?" He looked up at her. "That's it?"

"Yeah." She pursed her lips slightly, looking down, and he sighed. "What are you trying not to ask?"

"I'm just wondering why you look like you feel guilty, but feel like you shouldn't feel guilty."

There was a short silence, broken by Rey chuckling tiredly. "You... why didn't you go into the NYPD?" He shook his head. "Nothing happened. This woman was just helping us out getting in to see people at the studio, and she asked if I could take a look at the script. Lennie said she should take me out to dinner. We went to dinner, and I got the script from her."

"And?"

"And when she went to leave... we kissed. That's all."

There was a profound silence, then Rey stood to go.

"Where are you going?" Deborah asked. Rey glanced at her, puzzled.

"I gotta get some sleep, Deborah. We took the red-eye in last night."

"OK, yeah. I'm sorry, I know you don't sleep well on planes." Rey nodded wearily, went to get his jacket.

"Rey-" he turned back. "Thanks for telling me." Rey shrugged uncomfortably. "I mean - you didn't have to."

"Yeah, OK," Rey chuckled without much humour. Didn't have to. So it could come up some months later and get thrown in his face as yet another deception? Right.

"Did you... were you attracted to her?" Deborah asked hesitantly. He felt himself blushing, but forced himself to not sound defensive.

"Yeah. She was nice."

"So why didn't anything else happen?" Rey gave her a slight smile and shook his head again. "Because of me? Because of us?"

"You're the one who wanted to sign those papers," he pointed out quietly. She nodded.

"I know. What you do now is none of my business."

"That's not by my choice."

"I - I know," she hesitantly touched his arm. "Rey... I, I know, the papers... I know it probably seemed kind of out of the blue... it's just..." Deborah stopped, obviously not knowing how to say what she wanted to say. "And you... you didn't have to take off your ring, I wasn't, that wasn't..." she trailed off again.

"You wanted me to take this seriously. I'm taking it seriously."

"You didn't have to-" she cut herself off, shaking her head. She smiled at him sadly, then slowly drew closer and put her arms around him. He felt slightly startled before automatically hugging her back, then he slowly relaxed into her embrace.

She wasn't angry. Not that she had any right to be, but it wouldn't have surprised him at all if she had been. But maybe she just appreciated him being honest with her. Who knew.

Don't try to figure out why she's not angry right now, he told himself wearily. The important thing is that she's not. At least she wasn't treating him like the enemy right now, and there was still hope that some day there might be more than this. That they could somehow work their way back to friendship, at least, and then to trust and back to being a couple again, a family again. That they could tear up those damn papers. All of a sudden he felt her shoulders shake and he pulled away slightly, shocked to find her trying to suppress tears.

"Baby, what is it?"

"I just - I wish... I wish that, that none of this had ever happened," she said, her voice shaking. "You're putting the kids to bed and we're talking after they're asleep and it feels so normal, so much like, like - I wish... I wish I could just forget the last few months, just pretend everything's OK." He swallowed hard. If he had a nickel for every time he'd wished that with all his heart...

He hesitantly brought his hand up to her face and cupped her cheek. She looked up at him and he wiped a tear from her cheek, his own throat tight.

"Yeah, I know. Me too," he said, his voice rough. She smiled at him slightly, and they gazed at each other for a moment before she bowed her head again and rested her forehead on his chest. He pulled her closer, winding his hand into her hair, just grateful to not be fighting right now. Maybe he'd caused her this pain, but at least she was letting him comfort her.

He closed his eyes as she slowly drew her hands down his back, to his waist. God, that felt good... he caressed the back of her neck gently, for a moment letting himself pretend that things really were OK, that affection between them wasn't an aberration any more. Felt her hitch her breath and abruptly remembered that Deborah had always said that it was a bit of a turn-on for her when he rubbed the back of her neck. That whether they were momentarily at peace or not, whether he'd meant it as a simple comforting gesture or not, he shouldn't be doing that, they weren't a couple any more.

Felt his heart skip a beat when Deborah made a sound in her throat and reached up to still his hand as he started to draw it away.

They stayed frozen for a moment, neither one knowing what to do next. Deborah pulled away and their eyes met, both hesitant, both confused. Then Deborah smiled at him and slowly drew closer, touching her lips to his.

Oh God. He was almost paralyzed with nervousness. Not since his first date had he ever felt this unsure. Should he respond? Would that be welcome or would Deborah come to her senses and push him away? And if he didn't, would she come to her senses and regret her impulsiveness, maybe even feel rejected? If - and then it became very difficult to think clearly as Deborah's lips parted and his hormones kicked in, loudly reminding him that whatever else was going on, it had been far longer than he was used to since the last time he'd had sex. He kissed her back, feeling her melting into him, and eagerly followed her lead.

===

_Thursday, December 21_  
_7:02 am_

Rey woke up, momentarily disoriented, expecting to see the ceiling of his sister's spare room, no longer used to waking up next to a warm presence. Blinked away sleep as the previous night came back with a rush. He glanced at Deborah, sleeping peacefully next to him. Chewed on his lip, suddenly nervous.

Last night had been passionate and wonderful and everything had seemed right. But now... oh, shit. What if Deborah regretted this? What if she woke up to the same doubts she had before? What if...

This was way out of his control. This wasn't how things were supposed to get back to normal. He'd had a few of these mornings in college, waking up next to somebody, not knowing for sure where a relationship was going to go. But it had never particularly mattered then, because at the time he wasn't looking for a 'relationship' to 'go' anywhere. It was very different waking up next to a friend who'd become a bedmate the night before and idly wondering if she'd be a bedmate again, and waking up next to the mother of your children, the woman you'd prayed with all your heart that you'd be able to come back to, and wondering the same thing.

She stirred, opening her eyes, and met his nervous gaze. Smiled sleepily.

Oh, thank God.

"Good morning," she murmured, drawing closer. He reflected that it was a good thing he was already lying down, because he would have felt the need to lie down anyway, he was that relieved. Almost dizzy. He must have been literally holding his breath.

"Good morning," he kissed the top of her head, stroked her cheek. She made a contented sound in her throat, then pulled away from him slightly and looked at him.

"Deborah? You OK?" he said after a moment.

"Yeah."

"You sure?" She studied him seriously for a moment, then seemed to make up her mind about something and put her head back on his chest, arms around him. He held her closer, caressing her shoulder. "No regrets?" he asked her quietly.

She sighed. "No... no regrets."

"Not even about... no protection?"

She sighed heavily and they were silent for a while. At one point last night, in the heat of the moment - or rather, before the heat of the moment - he'd asked, kicking himself for mentioning it but knowing that he'd kick himself far harder if he didn't, "Hon... where are you? In your cycle?"

She'd hesitated for a second, chest heaving, then admitted, "I don't know any more. I've stopped keeping track." He'd swallowed hard, ready to stop if she wanted him to, not wanting to pressure her in any way. They'd stared at each other. "And I don't care," she'd finally said fiercely, kissing him passionately and tugging off the last of his clothing and effectively ending their discussion.

But now...

"Hon?"

"That wasn't the smartest thing we've ever done," she said quietly.

"No, it wasn't." They were silent for a few minutes. "Are we OK though?" he asked, hating the uncertainty of their situation.

"You mean is everything back to the way it was before all of this?" he started to shake his head, no, that wasn't what he meant at all, but she continued, suppressing a laugh, "Rey... you're good. You're not _that_ good." He blinked at her, confused, then caught the twinkle in her eye and they chuckled together.

"You know that wasn't what I meant," he said a little while later.

"I know. I don't know if we're OK. I think so. I'll let you know? Is that OK?"

"What... what do we tell the girls?"

"Oh." Deborah bit her lip nervously. "Oh, god. I - I hadn't thought of that. Oh, this is kind of a mess, isn't it?"

"Kind of," Rey agreed. "Well, we better think of something, 'cause they'll be up any minute."

===

_5:30 pm_

Lennie stretched his sore back with relief as he and Rey decided to call it a day. They'd had a hell of a time playing catch-up after their sunny little vacation, but it had ended on an amusing note, at least.

They were way behind on the Triandos murder, of course, and had a ton of paperwork to do for the Grant extradition. But at least Triandos was interesting. They'd discovered that the lovely Mrs. Triandos had started out life as a stripper. And had met Mr. Triandos through a lawyer 'friend' of hers named Fritz, who hung out at the strip club with her.

When confronted with her racy past, Mrs. Triandos had hardly batted an eye, saying it wasn't a secret. However, when confronted with the fact that she had apparently been in two places at once the night her husband died, she'd been terribly, terribly embarrassed. And admitted that yes, she had gone home for a bit, taking a cab so the limo driver couldn't warn her husband that she was coming. Because she was worried that her mother might be moving in on her territory, having an affair with the dearly departed. And she'd asked her mother to leave, then left herself, picking up the mink jacket on the way out.

OK, that one never would've occurred to Lennie. A pretty 22-year old former stripper who had to keep her middle-aged mother away from her elderly husband. They'd decided to talk to the mother the next day.

Lennie grabbed his coat, grimacing at the thought of late-December New York weather. Funny, before sunny California he'd never noticed how dreary, dark, and depressing winter was here.

Rey got ready to go too, somewhat nervous. As far behind as they'd been on their cases, he would've much preferred to stay home with his family today. But Deborah had told him not to call in sick - they'd all still be there when he was done work.

It would've been nice if he could have believed that completely. But part of him kept worrying that she would come to her senses while he was gone and he'd come home to find his suitcase on the front steps. Well, he supposed he'd find out in about an hour or so.

In the meantime, he should really give his sister a call. Let her know he was back in town, but that... what? That he'd be staying at his - no, at Deborah's home tonight? Would he?

Damn it.

===

_Friday, December 22  
1:30 pm_

Kim Triandos' alibi for the mink checked out, mostly. She had indeed gone home, had words with her mother, and then they'd both left. But they'd left in two separate cabs. Which meant she could have turned around and gone right back home for a little while.

Interestingly, she had also cut her mother off, got rid of the allowance Triandos was giving her. She and Triandos' lawyer, Oliver Shane, were already taking charge of Triandos' money. According to her mother, they were friends.

"When Kim was stripping, she was friends with a lawyer," Lennie mused out loud as they walked out of the hotel where Kim Triandos' mother was staying.

"Named Fritz," Rey pointed out.

"Rey, if you were a married lawyer, hanging out with strippers, would you use your real name? Well maybe _you_ would," Lennie quipped, and Rey gave him a pained glance. "How're things going with you and Deborah?" Lennie asked as they reached the car.

Rey quickly suppressed his slight alarm as he dismissively said, "Still living on my sister's couch." Which wasn't really a lie, since they hadn't talked about him actually moving back in for good. They hadn't talked about anything, actually. Just picked up as if he'd never been away. It was almost eerie, how quickly they'd all slipped back to being a family again, even the kids.

If only he could trust this. If only he could stop feeling like this was just a strange little alternate reality that could disappear at any minute.

Anyway, he sure as hell wasn't going to go into detail with Lennie over what was actually going on, when he had no clue himself. "So what if this Fritz is really Triandos' lawyer?" he asked, bringing his mind back to something he could actually work on.

===

_Saturday, December 23_  
_1:00 pm_

Evan Grant, now a resident of Riker's Island, had finally fessed up to having sex with Ellison the night of her murder. However, he told Ross and McCoy that he'd borrowed her car to go to New Paltz and said his toll receipt from when he got off the Thruway was probably still in there. So Lennie had called Rey to the garage, because that would blow their evidence against Grant. Turned out that no, there was no receipt, but the trip hadn't been a waste of time. The guy at the garage had mentioned that Eddie Newman, who happened to have a parking spot right next to Ellison's, had called from LA the day after her murder, to get his car cleaned. "Said he wanted it done right away - inside and out."

Which sounded pretty hinky to them. So they'd gone back to the precinct to check it out, see if there was any possibility Newman had been in New York the day of the murder. Turned out there was: Newman's cell phone had been routed through a number in LA that night, but he could have been using it from anywhere.

"Hey Rey," Profaci said as they finished briefing Van Buren on the latest development, "A Leesa Lundquist called earlier. She says she's at the Royal Tennent, but you can call her any time, day or night," he smiled, teasing.

"Thanks for the message," Rey said brusquely, going to his desk.

"I think she likes you," Lennie followed him, doing his best imitation of a teenage girl.

Rey rubbed his forehead. "Lennie..."

"What?"

"Cut it out."

"What is with you?" Lennie said impatiently. This whole overly sensitive thing was really starting to get old.

Rey hesitated, then said quickly, "I'm back home."

Lennie's eyebrows went up. There was an awkward silence. "As in, back with your wife?"

Rey nodded.

"Since when?"

"Since we got back to the City."

Lennie paused for a moment. "And... all's forgiven?"

"I don't know," Rey sighed heavily, "But..."

"Yeah, yeah, OK, point taken." They both simultaneously looked down at their desks, searching for a topic-changer. "So... what do you wanna do while we're waiting for Newman's cell phone records?"

"Uh..."

"Hey, why don't you go home?" Lennie suggested on impulse. After all, there was no need for both of them to wait around for fax records from Newman's cell phone, showing where it had been when he used it that day. "I mean, I wouldn't have called you to go to Ellison's garage this morning if I knew..." Lennie said apologetically.

Rey looked doubtful. "You sure? We're off tomorrow and Monday..."

"Rey, go home. It's Saturday. It's almost Christmas. Spend some time with your family." While you can, Lennie finished privately. Because if he were taking bets on this reconciliation lasting... he wouldn't.

===

_Tuesday, December 26_  
_5:30 pm_

Oh, shit.

Rey sensed as soon as he came into the house that something was not right. The kids greeted him joyfully, but Deborah...

"Baby, what's wrong," he murmured into her ear as he embraced her, trying to get her to relax. She stood stiffly in his arms for a moment before briefly hugging him back, then moving away.

"Girls, how about you go to the basement for a little while," she said.

"But Mommy," Serena began, quieting as Deborah gave her a stern glare.

"What's wrong, hon?" Rey asked when the girls were gone. Deborah hesitated for a long time, then blurted,

"I was in the middle of my cycle the other day."

Rey's stomach lurched, not so much at her words but at her tense, almost accusative tone. He forced himself to not react.

"Are you worried?" he asked quietly.

"Are you kidding?" she said impatiently. "Of course I'm worried."

"Baby, it was just once-" he started to say, then thought better of it and closed his mouth. It had been just once - they'd picked up condoms the next day - but that really wasn't the thing to say to her right now. She'd obviously been getting more and more worried about this as the day wore on.

"Just once is all it took with Isabel," she reminded him brusquely.

"Why don't we just worry if you're late-" he began, then thought better of that too as she glared at him. Maybe this was one of those times when nothing he could say would help and he should really just shut up.

"I was right in the middle. The most fertile time."

"I thought you weren't keeping track any more."

"I wasn't doing the whole Natural Family Planning thing with taking my temperature and tracking and all that, but yeah, I keep track of it, roughly - what the hell does it matter?"

Rey hesitated for a moment. "What... what can I say?" he finally asked cautiously. "What do you want me to say?"

Deborah blew out her breath angrily. "What can you say? This isn't a problem to you, is it?"

"What?"

"I mean, you're back, that's all that matters, right? We're all just pretending nothing happened, everything's the way it was before-"

"I didn't know if you wanted to talk about it," Rey interrupted. "I'm just following your lead."

"We all go off to church like a family on Christmas day, like nothing happened, like we've been together all along-"

"Deborah-"

"What?!"

Rey held his tongue, having no idea what to say. No, everything wasn't the way it had been. For one thing, going to church together for Christmas services had been more than a little uncomfortable, facing startled looks and sidelong glances from their fellow parishioners. The idea of the Ladies' Auxiliary and the Sunday School teachers and the Meal Brigade all gossiping about his family yet again... that had been extremely unpleasant.

And even being at home wasn't 'all better now'. The fact that they hadn't talked about it, that they'd put off the girls when they asked if Daddy was home to stay now, the fact that he'd been worried about their carelessness that first night too... the fact that every time he went to work he was afraid of coming home to... to this...

No, it wasn't all better. Especially not right now.

"What if I'm pregnant?" Deborah asked, half-angry, half-scared.

"Deborah - what if you are? We'll deal with it-" he tried to reassure her.

"Oh, that would be terrific, wouldn't it? That's what you wanted anyway-"

"Hey, no, it's not, I know this isn't-"

"You were the one who wanted us to have another child before all of this happened, you're the one who was pushing to stop doing NFP!"

He stared at her, not quite believing what she was saying. "You think I want us to have another baby with things the way they are right now?!"

"Well you sure as hell weren't doing anything to slow us down!"

"I _did_! For God's sake, I asked you if-"

"Oh, yeah, you asked, good for you-"

"What the hell did you want from me?" he flared, tired of tiptoeing around her feelings. "You wanted to as much as I did!!"

"You have no self-control at all, do you?"

"That's not fair!! We _both_ lost control that night-"

"Except I'm the one who'll suffer for it!" she raged at him. "You bastard!!"

"Deborah! This isn't fair!!"

"Mommy?" Olivia's frightened voice in the stairway brought them up short.

Deborah cursed under her breath but quickly called out, "Sweetie, go back downstairs."

"How come you're yelling-"

"Olivia! Back to your playroom now!" Deborah said sternly. They waited until they heard her go back down the stairs, then Rey took a deep breath and tried to speak calmly.

"Deborah... look, I hope you're not, but... if you are, we'll find some way to deal with it. We'll be OK."

"We. Very nice, Rey. Which 'we' are we talking about?" He had no response to that, and she blew out her breath impatiently. "If you're thinking I'm just going to forgive and forget everything, just because I don't want to take care of a baby by myself-"

"I never said-"

"-then you can go to hell. Just because we made one mistake, I'm not going to compound it by making another one." Rey narrowed his eyes, stung by her words and tone but still trying to stay calm and reasonable.

"Deborah, don't make me regret that night-"

"Why the hell not?! I do!" she said bitterly.

A gasp escaped from him, and for a split second Deborah seemed to regret what she'd just said. Then her lips pressed together and she lifted her chin defiantly, daring him to lash back at her. He bit his lip and looked away from her, fighting to hide his hurt.

"You... you can be a real bitch, can't you," he said softly. There was a long silence.

"You know what?" Deborah said calmly. "I don't think this is working out."

Rey rubbed his forehead. There. The other shoe was dropping. "You want me to go?" he asked hollowly, and Deborah nodded and left the room. Rey numbly put his clothes into the suitcase, then called a taxi and went to say goodbye to the girls.

"Where's Daddy going?" Serena asked, confused.

"Daddy's going back to Aunt Lisa's place, he'll see you on the weekend," Deborah said nonchalantly. "Now say bye bye."

"But I thought he was gonna stay here now!" Olivia protested.

"You'll see him on Saturday, Olivia," Deborah explained patiently. Olivia glared at her, angry and upset.

"I gotta go, girls, I'll see you Saturday," Rey told them, forcing himself to keep his tone casual.

"But WHY?" Serena stomped her foot, her small face crumpling up as she started to work herself into a temper.

"Serena, it's complicated," Deborah said evenly, "Now say goodbye." Rey held out his arms and Serena ran to him, hugging him tightly.

"I don't WANT him to go!" she told Deborah belligerently. "You're a BAD Mommy! You're sending him AWAY!!"

"Come on, sweetie," he squeezed her comfortingly, murmuring, "Don't talk to Mommy like that. OK?" She frowned at him, lower lip trembling, and he cupped her cheek, regarding her seriously. "OK? Be a good girl." She clung to him fiercely, nodding reluctantly. "OK, I gotta go. I'll see you on the weekend." He gave her a quick kiss and gently disengaged himself from her tight embrace.

===

OK. Back to his sister's place. Back to reality, this couldn't have lasted anyway. He gave the cab driver the address, leaning back in the seat.

Suddenly strangely reluctant to face his sister and explain what had happened, he took out his cell phone and stared at it, thinking about calling Leesa Lundquist's hotel.

What the hell. Not like there was any point in avoiding temptation.

No, that was silly, this had nothing to do with temptation, he was just being polite and returning a call from somebody who had been helpful to him and Lennie and who probably just wanted to talk about the cop script. He punched in the number.

"Royal Tennent Hotel."

"Hello, I'm trying to get in touch with a guest there, Leesa Lundquist - I'm not sure what room she's staying in..."

"Your name, sir?"

"Rey Curtis."

"Mmhm... ah yes, Miss Lundquist, Room 3130. She left a note for us to put your call through."

===

_6:30 pm_

"Back again?" Profaci asked Rey, surprised. "You forget something?"

"Nah, just giving a tour," Rey said. "Uh, Leesa, this is Tony Profaci, he's one of the detectives here. This is Leesa Lundquist," he introduced them. Profaci greeted Leesa politely, giving Rey a questioning glance as she asked him a few questions about his job at the 2-7.

Rey ignored Profaci's curiosity. Word had finally filtered through the precinct that he was separated - really, you couldn't keep anything private forever in a workplace staffed by so many intrinsically curious people - but Leesa's presence here didn't have anything to do with his marital breakdown. So Profaci could just damn well wipe that little speculative smirk off his face.

"You were working today?" Leesa asked him as Profaci left.

"Yeah, got Christmas day off, but we were on today. Besides, we're still playing catch-up with our cases from when we were in LA."

"How are they going?"

"Pretty good," Rey said easily. Actually, really good, today. The Ellison case in particular had gone very, very well. The murder weapon, a huge knife called a barong, had been found by some kid out in Islip yesterday. So they'd gone out to talk to him today, see when he found it. And in the Triandos case, Triandos' butler had told them that Kim Triandos had indeed been introduced to her husband by Oliver Shane, Triandos' lawyer. Probably AKA Fritz.

They wandered through the precinct, chatting as he showed her the interrogation room, line-up rooms, holding cells, Leesa shaking her head at how small and cramped everything was. Reminding him of places in the script where it seemed the writer had assumed a precinct had unlimited space for large crowds of people to gather.

"Not bad for cop flavour," Leesa said a little while later. "So... what about dinner flavour? Any restaurants you can recommend? I'm on Mattawin Studios' expense account..." she said teasingly. He hesitated, a million objections racing through his mind. Not the least of which was that this was Tuesday and he and Deborah hadn't actually cancelled counseling tonight...

Oh, what the hell. "You like Italian?"

===

_11:58 pm_

_Why the hell not?! I do!_

Deborah's words were still echoing in his mind hours later as he tried to get to sleep, back on his sister's couch. Drowning out the pleasant time he'd had with Leesa that evening and all he'd accomplished at work that day.

Of all the things she'd flung at him in these last few months, that went right up there to the Top Ten of "Things Deborah's Said to Rip Up My Heart". Right up among "They deserve better than you as a father" and "What marriage?"

He'd told himself that even if they didn't manage to patch things up, at least that night would not be something to regret. He knew it could be the last time he ever made love to her, the last time he ever went to sleep or woke up next to her, but he'd told himself that if that turned out to be the case, he'd just try to treasure the memory. And hopefully she would do the same.

Apparently not. Apparently she regretted sleeping with him like... like he regretted sleeping with that girl from the Park. Like he was an unpleasant mistake she'd made. Like if a child resulted from their night together, that would be not a blessing at all but a curse.

Jesus. Like nothing else, this was driving home the fact that they were headed straight for divorce.

===

_Wednesday, December 27_  
_9:35 am_

"And that's it for the Mink Widow," Lennie said as they finished telling Van Buren about the Triandos arrest. Fairly predictable, once you got past all the red herrings about butlers and students and students' fathers. Triandos' pretty widow and her lawyer friend had conspired to have her meet him, marry him, and wait around for him to keel over. That much she'd admitted to. And when he didn't, one of them helped him along. Although of course the lovely widow denied that part.

"There was no hurry, Peter was old, he had medical problems," she'd said.

"Yeah. A cord wrapped around his neck," Rey had deadpanned.

Still, it was enough for an arrest, and from here on in it was up to the DA to line up all the evidence. And now they could concentrate fully on the Ellison case.

Which was a good thing, because although they had the murder weapon for the Ellison case, there were two small problems. Not only were Grant's prints not on the murder weapon, but Grant had checked into his motel in New Paltz at 11:45. There wasn't enough time to kill Ellison in Manhattan, dump the barong in Islip, then get to New Paltz at 11:45. And he had to have dumped it that night, too - the kid who found it said he'd found it the day his class took a field trip to the Museum of Natural History. Which was the day after Ellison's murder.

"If Grant wasn't in Islip, maybe Eddie Newman was," Rey suggested.

"Wasn't he in LA?" Van Buren asked.

"He was with his cell phone. Which could be anywhere."

"LAPD says it could take a week to get his phone records," Lennie put in.

"Well. Before we start apologizing to Mr. Grant, retrace his timeline and nail it down," Van Buren told them, dismissing them.

"So, it's not even lunch yet, we've already arrested one person and might have to un-arrest another one," Lennie said tiredly as Rey approached their desks. "Let's go get something to eat."

"Yeah - diner, though, not a hot dog stand," Rey said.

"What, Deborah didn't make you another Christmas leftover lunch today?" Lennie joked.

"Nah, I'm back at my sister's," Rey said casually. Lennie glanced at him in slight surprise, but his partner's expression was closed off. Well, that hadn't lasted long, Lennie thought. No big surprise there.

===

"Hey, you ever return that call from Leesa the other day?" Lennie asked as they entered the Traffic Division. They'd figured that, given about an hour to argue with, kill, and dismember Ellison, then dispose of her head and torso in the river, and given two hours to get from Islip to New Paltz, Grant had to have left Islip by no later than 9:30. Which meant he had to get from Manhattan to Islip in 45 minutes or less. So now they were going to see if that could have been possible that night.

"Uh, yeah, we got together yesterday. She wanted to talk about the cop script again," Rey said, ignoring Lennie's skeptically raised eyebrow as the Traffic Division clerk approached and they told him what they were looking for.

"So whadja do with Leesa?" Lennie asked as they waited for the clerk to come back. "Show her the sights?"

"Showed her the precinct."

"Girl flies in all the way from California..."

"What, jumpin' into the sack with her's not gonna save my marriage, Lennie."

"Well, neither is your on and off separation-"

"The expert speaks," Rey said dismissively.

"Hey I know what _doesn't_ work," Lennie said forcefully. "Believe me, if your wife wanted a doormat, she'd go to Sears. Hey, put a clock on it, Rey, so the two of you can get on with your lives."

Doormat, Rey thought as they listened to the Traffic clerk describe traffic on the LIE that night. Was that what he was? He'd been trying so hard to make up for his sin. He'd done everything Deborah wanted him to, and chastised himself when he got pissed off at her. Told himself over and over again that this was his due for having betrayed her in the first place.

But how far could that go, really? At what point did this stop being proper penance and start being masochistic stupidity?

He pulled himself up short, realizing what he was doing. Taking what Lennie said about marriage seriously. He grimaced, disgusted with himself. Brought himself back to the case, and to their purpose - trying to figure out how Grant disposed of the barong in Islip and still made it to New Paltz that night.

===

_Thursday, December 28_  
_10:30 pm_

"So... I should really get going. I gotta go to work tomorrow," Rey said reluctantly as he brought Leesa their wine glasses. Dinner had been great, the conversation interesting, and they'd come back to her hotel suite for drinks afterwards. A very nice way to end a day that had consisted mostly of still trying to track down whoever dumped the barong in Islip, since it almost certainly couldn't have been Grant. But now it was time to go back to reality. Besides, his sister would probably be wondering where he was.

"OK, sure," Leesa took the glasses, putting them into the sink and giving him a friendly smile. He smiled back.

"Leesa... thanks."

"For what?"

"Just..." he felt suddenly shy, not sure what to say. "Um... just, it's, it's nice spending time with you." He shrugged, slightly uncomfortable. "I've had a good time, that's all."

"You're welcome," she grinned at him. "The feeling's very mutual." She rested her hand on his arm lightly. He hesitated, then covered her hand with his, telling himself he had to, had to, had to leave. Right now. Looked back up at her, into her eyes, found himself drawing closer to her almost as if somebody else was moving his body. And then she was moving closer too, and then they were kissing. And he was pulling her closer, breathing in her perfume, letting his hands touch her hair, her face...

No no no no no, he thought vaguely as she made a sound in her throat and cupped his cheek and he felt his breath come out in a gasp. Christ, you'd think he hadn't had sex in years the way he was responding to her, hyper-sensitized, every instinct pulling him closer to her, his fingers itching to undo the buttons on her blouse, get rid of the clothing separating them, feel her against him, skin on skin, totally ready for anything and everything-

And where they were headed wasn't worth the way he would feel the next day.

Right.

He slowed them down, deliberately brought his hands to her shoulders and ended their kiss. She made a questioning sound and sought his lips again, and he caught at her hands and held them as they kissed again, more gently this time, then ended the kiss regretfully and put his fingers on her lips. He rested his forehead against hers, closing his eyes, fingers resting against her lips, gently keeping them apart. He sighed deeply, trying to ignore his body's protest, trembling with interrupted desire.

"I'm sorry, I - I really have to go."

She gazed at him, disappointment clear in her eyes, and he looked away. That hadn't been fair to her. She didn't deserve this back-and-forth from him, any more than he deserved it from Deborah. In fact, she deserved it far, far less.

"I'm sorry. I'll let myself out," he said, his voice low. More than a little appalled, now that blood was starting to flow normally again, at how close he had come to forgetting his marriage vows all over again.

But you're not really married, a little internal voice pointed out.

That doesn't matter, he told the little voice firmly. Those papers might mean something in civil court, and things might be really bad right now, but in the eyes of God, he and Deborah were still man and wife, and there was no excuse for this. Not even the echo of the words Deborah had flung at him three days ago.

"Rey, it's OK," Leesa said gently. "I... I know you're married. I knew what I was getting into," she said wryly. "Or at least, I should have."

===

_7:30am_

"You came in late last night," his sister commented the next morning. Rey nodded, getting himself a coffee.

"Working late?" she asked, her voice deceptively casual. His brother-in-law made an impatient sound in his throat and Rey caught a quick exchange of glances between them.

"No," he said shortly.

"Were you at home?"

"You mean at Deborah's house?" Rey clarified bitterly. "No, I wasn't." She waited. "I went to dinner with a friend." She pursed her lips, sensing more than he was saying and waiting expectantly.

"Lisa, shut up and mind your own business," his brother-in-law said impatiently and left the kitchen. Rey narrowed his eyes, barely biting back several comments. Although he appreciated the sentiment, having this asshole talk like that to his sister, however irate Rey himself was at her prying...

Lisa ignored her husband, staring straight at Rey. "A woman friend?"

Rey stared back at her, refusing to show the discomfort he felt, reminding himself that he hadn't done anything wrong.

"What the hell are you doing? You think this is the way to get your life back in order? Shack up with some slut-"

"She's not a slut," Rey interrupted evenly. "And in case you forgot, the reason I'm here is my wife just kicked me out, again-"

"So this is how you're gonna prove to her that you're worth taking back?"

"So what am I supposed to do to 'prove myself' to her?" Rey asked angrily.

"You're supposed to do whatever it takes! _You_ fucked up, little brother. Not her. So when she says jump, you say how high, you don't go and-"

"Yeah, sure. That's what I've been doing. And it's working real well so far. Jesus, maybe Lennie was right," he muttered into his coffee cup.

"Lennie?"

"He said if my wife wanted a doormat, she'd go to Sears."

"Taking marriage advice from your partner," Lisa commented dryly. "I guess that's no dumber than anything else you've done lately." Rey glanced at her impatiently. "You wanna call Jorge, ask his advice too?"

"Why don't I just ask you?" he shot back. "Because it looks like your marriage is just one long party."

"Go to hell, Rey," she stood up and stalked out of the kitchen. He sighed and after a moment, followed her into the living room.

"Lisa, I'm sorry. That was out of line."

"Yeah. It was," she said shortly.

"Look, I'm not - nothing's happening with this other woman," Rey said quietly. "And I'm... I'm still trying, with Deborah. It's just a bad time right now."

"You like this girl?" Lisa asked after a moment. Rey shrugged. She shook her head. "Rey... if you do, you're playing with fire. Cut it out or you're gonna get burned."

===

_Sunday, December 31_  
_10:30 am_

Rey measured and mixed in salt for the play-doh mix, one ear on the Sunday School teacher as she taught the day's lesson. It was his turn to do the craft prep today and the kids were going to make play-doh representations of things that had happened to them this year, and things they hoped would happen next year.

His mind wandered as he kneaded the play-doh. The Sunday School teacher had suggested that the parent volunteers help by telling the kids a little story about something important that had happened in their own lives, then making a little sculpture. So... what should he make?

He smiled slightly, amused. Maybe a little sculpture about the Ellison case, one of the more important cases they'd had - certainly one of the most notorious. A little headless torso?

That wouldn't go over very well with the Sunday School teacher. Maybe a bunch of little planes. Planes were certainly figuring prominently in this case. First the plane that was supposed to have taken Ellison to Bora Bora, then the planes he and Lennie took to LA and back, then the little private planes that had provided them with a real break. They'd talked to a gas station attendant near the field where the barong was dumped, who remembered a City cabbie coming in the night Ellison was killed. The cabbie had taken a fare from Manhattan to Islip but dropped him off just short of McArthur Airport. Which sounded odd - why not drop him off at McArthur Airport? So they'd figured maybe that might be the barong-dumper, catching a private plane out. They'd checked with private plane owners flying out of McArthur that day to see if anybody connected to Ellison had flown out of the City.

Yes, somebody had. In one of the most bizarre interviews Rey had ever conducted, some bigwig plane owner named Burger had told them through his staff (the guy hadn't said a word, it was actually kind of impressive) that he'd been held up awaiting a passenger that night. Eddie Newman. Ellison's loving ex-husband. Who said he'd been in LA at the time.

Yeah, little planes. He could make little planes. That would sure beat the other sculptures he could make, about the most important things that had really happened to him this year. A college grad student. A separation document. A possible baby. He turned his thoughts away from that last one and broke the play-doh into four batches, setting aside one batch to stay white and starting to work yellow food dye into another batch.

As for what he hoped for next year... their family together again? That was still a possibility, albeit a slim one. Leesa had gone back to LA, so that temptation was gone. He and Deborah were supposed to go back to counseling this Tuesday - as it turned out, she had also skipped last week, so at least she couldn't be pissed at him for that. Maybe they might start to get back on track.

And if they didn't... he was slowly getting used to this separation thing. It was awful, but not the end of the world after all. He was no longer so out of his depth on his own with the girls - in fact, he was taking them out for all of New Year's Day tomorrow and hadn't really worried about how to handle that, because he knew it would work out.

No, it wasn't so bad, he thought as he worked the red dye into another batch. Except... except that now there was this baby thing hanging over them. Another incentive to work things out, as well as yet another stressor in an already volatile situation.

This baby thing. Whenever he didn't work to keep from obsessing over it, there it was. Especially since Deborah wasn't due until four days from now, so she couldn't even do a test to set their minds at ease. If Deborah was pregnant... god, that would be a disaster.

Rey swallowed hard, remembering the last time he'd been worried like this. Laura. Two girlfriends before Deborah, so... ten years ago. The condom broke and he'd spent two weeks worried sick, partly because he and Laura were just a casual couple, so marriage was out of the question, but mostly because Laura had made no bones about the fact that abortion was definitely her option of choice. The thought of his own child, wanted or not, being destroyed like so much unwanted tissue... that had kept him awake night after night.

Thank God at least that wasn't an issue this time. But still... his child growing up without a father from the very beginning...

Stop it, he told himself, starting a blue batch of play-doh. She doesn't know she was fertile, she just has a rough guesstimate. For all you know, there's nothing to worry about. So why all this damn useless obsessing over nothing?

He'd never been worried with Deborah. Hopeful the first two times and slightly nervous the last, but never actively worried. Never actively praying for Deborah's period.

Never sternly reminding himself that he _should_ pray for her period, that hoping another baby might bring them closer together was incredibly stupid and unrealistic.

They'd been actively trying with Olivia and Serena, and sort of trying not to with Isabel. Avoiding sex when it might result in a baby, but not being too conscientious about it. They'd gotten carried away a few times, each time just thinking what the hell, if it happens, it happens. When the last time resulted in Isabel, neither of them had minded. Unplanned but not unwelcome, was how Deborah had explained her third pregnancy to a friend.

If she was pregnant now, how would they deal with it? How could Deborah be up all night with a baby, then take care of the other girls the next day, day after day? They used to take turns waking up at night - how could they take turns now? Maybe he could ask for time off from work... did the NYPD even have paternity leave?

Another frightening thought: would Deborah decide she couldn't do it on her own and move to her mother's place at the Pequot Rez? A lot of single women with new babies did that. He pressed his lips together as he set up the craft table with the new play-doh. It was a three-hour trip out there. If Deborah went that route... how often would he be able to see his kids?

And what about the birth? Would he even be there for that? He'd been there through thirty hours with Olivia and an emergency Caesarian with Serena and an amazingly uncomplicated VBAC with Isabel. It had been a miraculous thing each time, three of the most difficult and magical days of his life, three of his most treasured memories. Helping his wife as she brought their children into the world.

Would she want him there at all this time? Or would this one be born without him? With him shunted aside, hoping she'd think to call him afterwards?

Stop it! he gave himself a mental shake. What the hell is the matter with you? Stop worrying about something that's probably nothing. There's enough to worry about that's real.

Like right now, he realized as the Sunday School lesson ended and the children swarmed over to the craft table. What were his daughters going to make? How painful would it be, how would he deal with it, if they ended up with three little play-doh versions of a broken family?

He dismissed that morbid thought as well. Kids tended to be a little more self-centred than that. Olivia would probably make some kind of representation of a two-wheel bike, and Serena might make a big number four - she was very, very proud of having turned four this year. And Isabel was so small she'd probably just try to eat the play-doh. She climbed into his lap and he got her some play-doh, surreptitiously tasting a small piece before he gave it to her. Good, he grimaced, swallowing it quickly. It was disgustingly salty. She'd hate that.

===

_Monday, January 1  
3:30 am_

_A woman's voice whispering in his ear. Hands caressing him everywhere, setting him on fire. And he didn't have to prove himself to her, get past her mistrust or disappointment in him. Just feel her body responding to his and know that she wanted him, that she wouldn't throw this at him later, wouldn't regret it..._

_The feeling's very mutual, she murmured_

_Her blue eyes sparkled at him and he held her close, curly brown hair felt like silk to his fingers, and she smiled and their lips met as he slid his hand under her shirt-_

Shit! Rey woke up and groaned. No, what the hell was that? Now he was even being unfaithful in his dreams. He felt a pang of guilt mixed with arousal. That had been pretty vivid. Now he was awake, frustrated as hell, and feeling guilty on top of that.

No, come on, he gave himself a mental shake. You're not _that_ Catholic. Dirty dreams are beyond your control. Get a grip. He rolled over, closed his eyes, and dutifully made himself think of evidence reports until he fell asleep.

===

_8:30 pm_

"More coffee, Jorge?" Lisa asked their older brother, who was visiting for a couple of days.

"Yeah, yeah," Jorge said distractedly. "So this happened how long ago?" he asked Rey.

"Two and a half months."

Jorge whistled in disbelief. Rey shrugged. He'd been really hoping he wouldn't have to tell Jorge he was separated, but it really couldn't be helped. Jorge had shown up in New York unexpectedly on business and plopped himself down at Lisa's house, and of course the topic of why Rey was staying there too had come up.

"Wow. This is what I miss by living in Tucson. All the best gossip happens without me."

Lisa frowned at Jorge's cheerful, cat-that-ate-the-canary tone and changed the subject. "So how did the girls like the New Year's Day Exhibit at the museum?"

Rey smiled. "They loved it. There was just one freak-out from Isabel when we were in the bug section. Good thing I got her settled before the security guard came over, he knows me."

"From where?"

"He's a moonlighting IAB cop, I met him during the Flynn case a few months ago. He looked like he was itching to get back at me."

"Oh, is he one of the ones that ruled that bad shooting good?" Lisa asked, and Rey nodded.

"IAB?" Jorge asked.

"Internal Affairs Bureau. You know, catching crooked cops. Me and Lennie had to do their job for them, made them look like idiots."

"Crooked cops, huh? And I thought you were all such saints. Oops, present company excepted, I guess," Jorge said drolly. Lisa glared at him as Rey blushed and cleared his throat, and Jorge chuckled at their expressions. "Nah, come on, Lisa, you can't expect me to just sit and not say anything about this. Come on. After the shit he said to me when my marriage tanked?"

"Jorge," Lisa said evenly. "It's not the same. They're going to patch things up. They're in counseling." Jorge blew out his breath derisively. "You're going back tomorrow, right?" Lisa asked.

"Yeah," Rey muttered.

"So you been living here the whole time?" Jorge asked.

"I was at a hotel for a while."

"You still going to see those places this weekend?" Lisa asked, and Rey nodded. "You know, you don't have to-" she began as she finished her coffee and got up.

"Yeah, I really do," Rey said gently. She nodded and gave his shoulder an affectionate squeeze as she left the kitchen.

"'Cause of the Resident Drunken Asshole?" Jorge asked as soon as she was gone. Rey let his silence speak for itself. Jorge shook his head. "How do you put up with that son of a bitch?"

"I know it wouldn't help Lisa any if I belted him. But..." he shook his head, remembering all the times in the last few weeks that he'd had to bite his tongue to keep from at least giving their brother-in-law a piece of his mind.

"Two days is about my limit. He still drinking like a fish?" Rey nodded and Jorge sighed. "Why the hell's she still with him? Pathetic loser."

"They're married, Jorge."

"Damn, you two... I swear to God every stupid idea Mama ever had about Till death do you part, the two of you just soaked it up like it was gospel truth."

"It _is_ gospel truth." Although in Lisa's case, Rey kind of had to agree with Jorge. This really was hopeless.

"Bullcrap. Comes a time when you just gotta get outta Dodge. Like you, now. Two months and you're still living at Big Sister's house and going to counseling," Jorge sneered. Rey stared at him silently. "What, you need a lightning bolt to spell it out for you? Move on, bro."

"It hasn't been that long."

Jorge snorted. "D'you ever watch Saturday Night Live, Deep Thoughts With Jack Handey? There was one that went, 'If you ever drop your watch into a river of molten lava, let it go. 'Cause man, it's gone'." Rey looked away, and Jorge leaned forward and repeated earnestly. "Let it go. 'Cause, man, it's gone. She is never gonna trust you again. And you know why? Because she's got no reason to. You're a guy, Rey. You tried to pretend for years that you were some sorta saint. But you're not. Pretty face comes along... it's biology, man."

"Don't give me that," Rey said impatiently.

"Hey, you're so into God and all that - you ever think maybe God made us the way we are for a reason? Maybe put what's between our legs for a reason?"

"Jorge!" Rey said in disgust.

"Fidelity is for women, bro. They can do it - they're so busy with kids and all that, it's not a problem for them. Guys, it's a different story. You really think you've got it in you to never step out again, as long as you live? You get the same thing in your bed every night, you think you're not gonna wanna experiment?"

"No."

"You haven't learned a thing, have you?" Jorge said in disbelief.

"I learned that I know better," Rey said quietly.

===

_Tuesday, January 2  
8:30 pm_

"We're only worried about the once," Rey explained, embarrassed, at their next counseling session. "We uh, we went to the drug store after that."

Morelli pursed his lips, suppressing judgment as he had during their recounting of what had happened over the last two weeks. So far, he hadn't been impressed by any of it, and they could both tell.

"What?" Deborah said, getting a little tired of feeling defensive.

"I'm just surprised, that's all. You two made a commitment to only use the form of birth control that the Church approved. I know you both used contraceptives before, but this was a promise you made to each other and to God when you got married. I'm surprised you broke it."

"We're not really married any more," Deborah said bluntly, and Rey winced. "I'd stopped keeping track of my cycle."

"Still-"

"Well, excuse me, using condoms is slightly lower on my scale of sins than bringing an unwanted child into the world."

Rey flinched. Shit. That hurt like hell.

"What?" Deborah said challengingly.

He shook his head. An unwanted child. Like the baby that might be growing inside her right now, his child, their child, was nothing but a mistake.

"Would this baby be unwanted?" Morelli asked her curiously.

"Are you kidding?"

"It wouldn't be planned, but-"

"Only a man could see this as anything positive."

"We're talking about a child, not a curse, Deborah."

"It's the same thing, if it isn't going to be brought into a stable home."

Rey looked away, too upset to respond.

"What? Do you want this?"

He shook his head.

"You do, don't you?"

"No, I don't. But... if, if you are pregnant - that's our _child_," he said helplessly, not able to articulate anything else. Their child. The product of their love, not some back-alley quickie against a wall. Which was how she was talking about it. "I, I know how you feel about me. And about that night. But-"

"But nothing. Don't try to make this sound like some hidden blessing-"

"Screw this," Rey said abruptly and stood up, feeling something snap inside. "I don't need this. Nobody needs this." He walked out and slammed the door.

Well. That was that. He'd walked out of the fucking useless, endless guilt-trip that was his marriage counseling. And probably walked away from his marriage.

"Rey!" Morelli followed him out of his office. Rey ignored him and started down the hallway. "Rey, you can't just walk out-"

"Yeah? Watch me," he tossed over his shoulder, not breaking stride.

"Rey, this marriage is your responsibility-"

"I've done everything I'm supposed to do!" he said, angrily turning on Morelli so quickly that Morelli nearly stumbled back. "This isn't going anywhere! She's not gonna forgive me, she's not gonna get over it - and I'm not gonna sit and let both of you keep walking all over me! You can both go to hell!!" Morelli gaped at him and Rey felt a prickle of alarm at himself. He'd just told his priest to go to hell. In church. This was going to be worth some mighty penance later.

Later. Not right now. Right now he was too angry to do more than turn around again and leave.


	6. Ambivalence

**CHAPTER 6: AMBIVALENCE**

_Tuesday, January 2_  
_8:40 pm _

"Well, so much for that," Deborah said bitterly as Morelli entered the room again. Morelli pursed his lips and sat down, considering her for a long moment. "What?" she finally asked.

"Is this what you wanted?"

"What?"

"To drive him off like that? To push him until he left?"

"You're taking his side?" Deborah asked, incredulous. Morelli narrowed his eyes, trying to keep anger in check. Anger at her, mostly, but also at himself. At his growing realization that Rey was right, that they had both been walking all over him and that he'd had every right to walk out in frustration.

"He's the one who was wrong!" Deborah said defiantly into Morelli's stony silence.

"Yes, he was. But you're so focused on how wrong he was that you're dismissing everything else."

"Like what?"

"Doesn't it matter at all that he did tell you?"

"After five months? Not much, no."

"After five months and a lot of pressure from me." Deborah shrugged impatiently. "I told him that as a Catholic and a husband and father he could not tell you."

"Rey doesn't listen well to authority."

"No, not most authority. But he does listen to the Church. As a representative of the Church, I know I hold a lot of sway with him." She looked away impatiently as Morelli persisted. "Do you know how much it took for him to go against what his own priest was telling him? Why do you think he did that?"

Deborah set her jaw stubbornly. "Because he loves you," Morelli said gently. "And he respects you. I wish he'd followed my advice because if he had, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. But he told you because he wanted to do right by you."

"He should've done right by me before-"

"And what do you think has kept him coming to these sessions?" Morelli continued, ignoring her. "Do you think he comes for the coffee? Because he enjoys delving into his deepest emotions?" She smiled slightly. Morelli paused to gather his thoughts and decided to say something that he'd been thinking for a long time, but now realized was way past due.

"Deborah. We all know you had a difficult childhood. But you need to get past it. You cannot expect him to live in the shadow of your mistrust for the rest of his life. That's not a marriage, that's a penance."

"But he knew - he grew up the same way I did, he said he didn't want to ever do that to his kids-"

"Yes, he knew. And he promised he wouldn't, and he broke that promise," Morelli recited wearily. "Enough. You are not a little girl being hurt by her father any more. Grow up. He has."

"Oh, he's grown up so much that now he's just like his father-"

"No, he's grown up because he's come here willing to make amends. You've just been coming here to nurse a grudge and be vindictive. He doesn't deserve that from you. He's more than paid for his mistake. He shouldn't have to pay for your father's as well."

Deborah sat back, staring at Morelli.

"He's not like your father, Deborah. He's not like his, either. They apparently had no problem with what they did - although I wouldn't be surprised if they both felt a lot more regret than either of you ever saw," Morelli reflected. He sighed. "It was one time, on a very, very bad day. Not over and over out of a need for adventure or boredom or whyever your father did it."

Deborah's face was set, but Morelli persisted. "Deborah... he'd just seen a man die, that day. He'd just seen a human life snuffed out of existence and he knew it was partly his fault."

"Mickey Scott? A piece of scum-"

"A human being. A child of God, no matter how flawed."

"But Rey believes in the death penalty-"

"Rey also believes in the sanctity of life. He thought he could reconcile the two, but he couldn't. Not that day. He didn't know what to do about that. He hadn't expected to have any trouble with it."

Morelli continued doggedly as Deborah crossed her arms. "Have you ever known him to doubt himself, doubt his beliefs, in all the years you've known him?" Deborah looked away, and he answered for her. "No, not till now. Well, I have. After the execution."

"And that's his excuse? He couldn't reconcile his beliefs so he-"

"Are you joking? Rey, coming up with a psychological excuse for a moral failure?" Morelli shook his head. "Rey has no idea why he did anything that day. This is just me piecing things together, from how he talks about that day. The way he talks about it... he was in shock, and he didn't even realize it until it was too late."

"So next time he's 'in shock'-"

"For God's sake, Deborah!" Morelli interrupted impatiently. "Haven't you heard a word I've said? The man he was seven months ago, yes, he was in shock and he reacted blindly and stupidly. The man he is today... I can't even imagine any trauma bad enough that would make him do it again. Living with it has been too painful, too devastating to his sense of self. He's done a hell of a lot of growing up in the last seven months, and he's hated every minute of it. You know Rey - brooding, thinking, hashing over feelings and motivations... it's a waste of time to him. Imagine having to do it as much as he's had to."

Deborah frowned, clearly not wanting to go down that path. She cleared her throat. "But... but how could he just lie to me like it was nothing, for all those months?" she said plaintively.

"It wasn't 'nothing' to him. Just because you didn't see anything, doesn't mean there was nothing to see," Morelli pointed out. He hesitated for a long moment, then said, "He wrote you a letter, you know."

"What?"

"About a month before he told you. He wrote a letter telling you what had happened, in case he died. He knew he couldn't tell you while he was alive, but it was eating him up. So I suggested that he write it down, maybe make his peace with it that way. He was a little...skeptical," Morelli smiled slightly at the memory, because that was a mild way of describing the absolute scorn with which Rey had treated the idea at first. "But he did it, and I think it helped him make some kind of peace."

Deborah looked at Morelli and Morelli was reminded of the expression on Rey's face when he'd suggested the letter. There was a remarkable similarity there. He hesitated again, then stood up and went to his filing cabinet. He searched for a minute, then took the letter out, glanced it over, and came to a decision.

"Here. This was supposed to be for you eventually anyway. You may as well read it."

_Dear Deborah:_

_If you're reading this I assume I've been dead for about two years and you got this from Father Morelli..._

Deborah's vision blurred as she read the words on the page. There, in Rey's neat script, were all of his doubts and misgivings, all of his remorse. His guilt over deceiving her. Everything that he hadn't been able to say, recorded on the page. Unable to sleep, wishing he could turn back time, wishing there was something, anything, he could do to make up for what he had done. All of his love for her and their children.

Deborah blinked away tears. "I wasn't supposed to see this until after he was dead?" she asked, her voice husky.

"No."

"Bastard," she choked, trying to hold on to her anger. "When I couldn't do anything about it. He was going to have the last word, and it was going to be _this_."

"He gave it to me, Deborah. I wouldn't have given it to you, and I think he knew that. But he needed to feel like he'd done something, told you in some way."

"Son of a bitch," Deborah said softly. "Why couldn't he say any of this to my face?"

===

_Thursday, January 4  
10:09 am_

I do not want to be here, Rey thought as he left the plane, back in LA.

They'd had a busy two days, questioning people about Newman. Jamie Ross had talked to Evan Grant, still at Riker's, to see how Ellison had gotten along with her ex. The answer was, not well. She'd even had him arrested for assault once when he beat her in a jealous rage, although the arresting officer, Detective Miller, had talked her out of filing charges. But at least that had given them enough to get an arrest warrant for Newman's apartment and car. They'd found enough pills in the apartment "to jump-start the sixties," according to Lennie and, more importantly, they'd also found a dozen strands of beige silk with Ellison's blood type on it caught on the gas pedal of his car, and three specks of the same blood in the trunk.

Bingo. That was all they needed to arrest the son of a bitch. Which meant that here they were, back in LA.

Back to Leesa, back to temptation he really couldn't deal with right now. Not when he didn't have a clue what would be the consequences of having walked out on his last counseling session two days ago.

Not when Deborah was now officially overdue. Just one day, true, but... Deborah had been more than one day late precisely three times. They were named Olivia, Serena, and Isabel.

"Welcome back," Detective Dunleavy, their contact from the LA Foothills Division, greeted them.

"Yeah, we're just here for takeout," Lennie said easily. "Now you guys have him in custody, right?"

"Not quite, he checked himself into the Judith Harvey Centre."

"He's in rehab? Let's go in and pull him out," Rey said impatiently.

"It's not that simple, there's a medical act."

"Hey I know the word 'rehab's' like a religion out here, but he can't just check himself into a drug treatment center and yell 'sanctuary'," Lennie said.

"I've got two units parked outside the clinic. Newman's not going anywhere," Dunleavy assured them.

"Hey, Rey! Way to go," Lennie said as they exited the airport and spotted a guy who looked like a limo driver, with a placard saying 'Detective Curtis'.

"I don't know anything about this."

"Over here," Lennie called to the driver.

"Detective Curtis?" the driver looked at Lennie.

"Ah, no, he's Curtis, I just hold his hat," Lennie quipped.

"Detective Curtis, Miss Lundquist arranged a car to take you to your hotel. She said she reserved your usual rooms."

"That's real nice, but we're leaving tonight."

"I'm happy to take you wherever you're going."

"We're on official business here, no thanks," Rey said, terribly uncomfortable.

"No problem. Um, Miss Lundquist asked me to give you this. It's her numbers where she can be reached. She asked that you give her a call, whenever you're done."

Oh, shit. No, not right now.

===

_Sunday, January 7  
6:00pm_

"OK, sweetness, I'll talk to you tomorrow," Rey said, smiling as Isabel lisped goodbye and hung up. He lay back on the bed, rubbing his eyes and wishing he were back in New York.

He and Lennie had gone to take Newman out of rehab, and been told they were supposed to wait for him to finish his ten-day program. What the...? They'd arrested him anyway, but still had to wait until he was arraigned, which wasn't going to happen until Tuesday. So he'd had to miss his weekend visits with the girls, and once more their cases back home were languishing while he and Lennie sat around and did nothing.

Well, not nothing. And that was a problem. Leesa... he was playing with fire, his sister had said, and she was right, but it was hard not to. Not when Leesa was here and fun to be with, and he had nothing else to do, and Deborah... Deborah was all over the place. Every night that he called home was a different story. Casual one night, cold the next, pleasant the night after, back to casual tonight. So many conflicting signals he'd completely given up on reading her or figuring out where they stood. All he had to go on were random facts, which didn't lead to any satisfactory conclusions at all.

Fact: she hadn't talked about counseling since he walked out.

Fact: she still hadn't had her period. Four days over, now.

Very puzzling fact: she had called him out of the blue the night after he left counseling, and they'd had a nothing conversation about something he didn't even remember, and she'd sounded... strange. Like she wanted to say something to him, but didn't know how. She'd hung up eventually, and he still had no idea why she'd called when she could have handled it through e-mail. And then the next night she'd gone back to impersonal.

Random facts that made no pattern. If this were a case, he'd have to say it was completely stalled.

In the meantime, playing with fire or not, he'd ended up spending time with Leesa. She'd taken him to Hollywood Boulevard, Santa Monica and the Queen Mary, and they'd had dinner together twice. He'd invited Lennie along each time, in part because Lennie was going stir crazy with nothing to do and in part because... just because.

Because being with Leesa was fun, but frustrating as hell, and he kept reminding himself to keep his distance. And still their eyes would meet every so often and sparks would fly and he'd have to remind himself that he was still married in the eyes of the Church and that he was going to honour that marriage, such as it was, at least until Deborah filed for divorce. And that she still hadn't said she would. And that everything was up in the air. And that it was increasingly likely that she might be pregnant.

Being with Leesa made for interesting dreams at night, at least. An interesting distraction while he tried not to worry about Deborah being late.

===

_Thursday, January 11  
5:30 pm _

"Steven Tashjian did kill somebody on Russo's orders, it just wasn't his wife," Jamie told them. They'd all gathered to talk over the Ellison case in McCoy's hotel room, and she was updating them on the end of the Ganz/Tashjian case as they waited for McCoy to get off the phone with Adam Schiff. "Jack gave him immunity to get him to testify against Russo."

"Immunity? On a murder?" Rey asked, eyeing McCoy askance.

"We couldn't have gotten him on it anyway, it happened too long ago and the trail would've been cold. This way at least we got Russo."

Rey tsk'd in disgust and Jamie dropped her eyes. "What, Rey, they did what they had to," Lennie protested, sensing that Jamie probably hadn't been all that pleased with Jack's solution either. Well, Jamie and Rey hadn't been around as long as he and McCoy had - they still didn't realize that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush.

"Jack wasn't sure that Tashjian had killed anybody when he gave him immunity," Jamie said lamely. Rey and Lennie both gave her identical looks of disbelief. "In any case, after we lost Flores' hospital confession, Tashjian was all we had on Russo. And Flores, for that matter. And it worked - Russo allocuted to all the murders and gave us the names of other Beachwood clients who killed for him, including Flores."

"Hey, you put away one mass murderer and arrested four of the people who killed on his orders. That's better than nothing," Lennie reassured her. Rey's face still had his patented expression of self-righteous indignation, although to his credit he kept his opinion to himself and didn't mention it when McCoy got off the phone and they started discussing the Ellison case.

And what a mess Ellison was turning out to be. If only the damn headless torso had turned out to be some nobody. You could bet this bicoastal crap with fancy lawyers and extraditions wouldn't have happened if the torso had been Carmella Raggo, the tata-enhanced stripper. Instead, Newman's lawyers were fighting the extradition on the basis that their New York warrant was invalid, so Jamie and McCoy had to fly all the way out here to prove otherwise. So here Lennie and Rey had been twiddling their thumbs for a full eight days, and nothing to show for it. Great.

Well, not nothing. Lennie had done some sightseeing, caught up on all the news fit to print, and even found an OTB parlour. OTB really wasn't the same here, though. Too sunny, too laid-back, too clean. Like this whole damn town.

He'd also met a rather nice, friendly widow from Louisiana in the hotel bar, and started spending some time with her. She was charmed by his New York accent - which amused Lennie, since he didn't know he had one - and she'd given him an excuse to avoid doing the third wheel thing with Rey and Leesa Lundquist. Thank god, because the sexual tension between those two was getting so thick it set Lennie's teeth on edge. Some people might find that kind of thing intriguing, but Lennie was just irritated and bored out of his skull by the whole situation. He was getting a little too close to losing it and snapping at Rey to grab a clue and take the girl to bed before they both spontaneously combusted.

Yeah, Marie the Wealthy Widow was a nice distraction. Friendly flirtation, the possibility of something more, very casual, very low-key. Just how he liked it. None of this ridiculous Victorian dancing around each other like moths around a flame that Rey had going with Leesa. So maybe the Ellison case wasn't a dead loss.

"I don't get the problem," Rey said. "We tossed out his alibi, we got her blood in his car."

"Well, maybe this judge thinks Smoking Gun is a famous Indian chief," Lennie said.

"This judge is an idiot," McCoy said in disgust. "He took the Full Faith and Credit clause of the Constitution and tossed it into Santa Monica Bay."

"Maybe you should take up golf," Jamie said to him.

"If it would help I'll send for my clubs," Lennie suggested. God knew he didn't have much else to do. He checked his watch. "Anybody wanna grab a bite?"

"Not me, I'm booked for dinner," Rey said. Lennie glanced over at him. Yeah, booked - he'd been invited along to dinner with him and Leesa again, but had begged off. Rey would just have to defend his virtue all on his own.

"Quick, turn up the sound," McCoy said, looking at the TV where Neal Gorton, Newman's sleazy defense lawyer - and, incidentally, Jamie's ex - was mugging for the cameras.

"We're going to prove that the arrest warrant for my client is produced from evidence planted in his car," Gorton was telling reporters. They all glanced at each other, alarmed, as the broadcast continued, then Jamie pushed the MUTE button in disgust.

"Of all the bull..." Rey muttered.

"Who had access to the car?" McCoy asked.

"I'll call and see if we can get on the red-eye," Lennie said quickly. Too bad, so sad, Marie. Maybe she'd give him a call next time she was in New York.

_9:25 pm_

Rey gazed out at the marina, waiting for Leesa to come out from belowdecks. Nice out here. Really nice. Nice dinner, nice boat, calm soothing motion of the waves... he could almost forget the e-mail he'd received that afternoon.

----

From: dosicaol.com  
To: rcurtisnypd.org  
Subject: (blank)  
Date: Thu, Jan 12, 1997 18:19:20 -0400

I'm not pregnant.  
----

That was it. All that worrying, done. Nine days late. And no explanation - nothing about whether she'd done a test or gotten her period. Not even a phone call. Just an e-mail from that address that he hated because it was yet another calculated slap in the face. DOSIC: Deborah, Olivia, Serena, Isabel Curtis. His own initial carefully kept out of it.

He gazed out at the water. Leesa had called right after he'd received Deborah's e-mail, and he'd agreed to go to dinner and then go see her boat, not sure why he was doing so. Not sure why he didn't think of an excuse to duck out of it when Lennie declined to come along, muttering "Three's a crowd, Rey."

What the hell. Why was he even doing this to himself? This look-but-don't-touch with Leesa? Why was he fooling himself that there was any point to it, that there was anything left with Deborah?

There wasn't. And even if there was, he'd looked this up. "'Partial Divorce': Separation in New York State,' a very useful website. If they ever did patch things up again, by law Deborah couldn't hold anything he did during their separation against him. He had a perfect right to shack up with whomever he wanted to. As did Deborah.

So what if the Church thought otherwise.

So what if the Church said that even if they divorced, if years from now he married someone else, that marriage would be considered adultery. And as long as he remained in that second marriage, he could attend mass, but he couldn't receive the sacraments, confess or take communion, any more than anybody else in a state of sin could.

He tried to imagine that for a moment. Having to choose between marrying somebody he loved and the Church. Never again being able to confess, receive absolution. Never again receiving communion, feeling close to God.

What would that be like, as a parent? Daddy doesn't live with you any more, kids. Daddy has a new wife, and they sit at the back of the church. And according to some very reliable sources, when they die they're going straight to Hell.

No. He wouldn't have to make that choice, because Deborah would be only too happy to grant him an annulment. In fact, she would probably seek one first. The choice would be whether to go along with it or not. Stay single for life or commit perjury. Swear, before God, that what he and Deborah had shared had meant nothing, in order to free them both.

And what would it be like to know that he had to do that because he'd lost what little chance he had of patching up his marriage by once again committing adultery? Whether Deborah gave lip service to "you're free to do whatever you want now that we're separated" or not, she would never forgive a second betrayal.

Hell, she would never forgive the first betrayal, he thought bitterly. This was just stupidity, waiting for her to make up her mind to file for divorce and annulment. She was going to anyway - what was the point of staying faithful to a marriage that was gone in all but the fine print?

He sighed. Principles or stupidity. Lennie wasn't the only one who wondered where one ended and the other began. But... in the end, principles mattered. And whether he was permitted to do so by the laws of man or not, whether Deborah forgave him for it or not, in the Church and in his heart, where it really mattered, sleeping with Leesa right now would be a mortal sin and there was no getting around that.

You're playing with fire, his sister had said. And his mother had told him one mistake didn't wipe out a whole lifetime of living up to his principles.

What about two mistakes?

He was startled out of his brooding by Leesa appearing from belowdecks. Grateful for the distraction, he pushed all of those morose thoughts away and sat back, gesturing at the boat.

"It did not look this big in the photo. You take this out by yourself?"

"It's not set up for single-handing. Right now it's perfect for two," she handed him a glass and poured wine for him. "You like boats?"

"Well I've been on the ferry with my girls," he joked. "Ellis Island, Statue of Liberty..."

"Hm," Leesa smiled. "I bet your daughters are sweethearts."

"Mmm... most of the time..."

Leesa made a gesture and he made room for her next to him. She sat down. "So uh, Rey, you ever think about changing jobs?"

"Every Monday morning, why?"

"I talked to the head of security at the studio, he says they're looking for someone with your experience."

"To do what?"

"Background checks, special investigations... I don't know what you make now, but you would easily triple your salary."

Rey shook his head in slight disbelief. God, this was such a different world out here. "Sounds great, Leesa, but... I can't leave the kids."

"I - I wouldn't expect you to. LA is a great place to live if you're an orange, but you'd work out of New York, you would travel to movie locations all over the world..."

He shook his head again. No, this shouldn't sound tempting... "I don't know."

"No strings attached," Leesa clarified gently. He abruptly felt very uncomfortable, and checked his watch.

"Your plane is not for couple of hours."

"I know, but I - I should probably head back to the hotel..."

"Don't you want to sleep with me?" Leesa asked bluntly.

OK, no more dancing around this. He gazed at her, filled with regret. "Yes, I do. But..."

"It's just sex. It doesn't have to go anywhere."

"I wish it were that easy. I do," he repeated, knowing he could never express just how much he really did. "Thanks for your offer," he said, and immediately kicked himself - god, that had sounded unbelievably crass. "Your job offer," he clarified quickly.

Leesa looked away, and he could read the disappointment in her face. Yes, she knew what she'd been getting into. Getting involved with a married man. But it looked like it still hurt.

If only he'd known what he was getting into, getting involved with her. If only he'd known just how much he'd regret turning her down. And all for the sake of a marriage that was a lost cause anyway.

===

_11:56 pm_

"What's with you?" Lennie asked on the plane a few hours later. Rey had shown up at the hotel after dinner, introspective, distracted, and even more taciturn than usual. It was like he'd plain forgotten how to put more than two words together.

"Nothing," Rey answered automatically.

Lennie made an impatient sound. "Yeah, nothing. What else is new. Your 'nothing' is killing me. It's like working with a corpse. Oh wait, I do work with corpses. I just don't expect my partner to be one of them."

Rey gave a rueful chuckle, but didn't turn away from the window. Lennie waited for a minute or so, then gave up and decided to go to sleep. He leaned his chair back and closed his eyes, trying to get comfortable.

"Today I found out my wife's not pregnant, and then I got a hell of a job offer," Rey said out of the blue.

Lennie's eyes popped open. He stared at Rey, who was still looking out the window. "Pregnant?"

"Yeah."

"You mean... when you were back home, you uh, you didn't take precautions?"

"We didn't have anything - doesn't matter anyway, she's not."

Lennie did some mental calculations. Typical - Rey had been worried about this for weeks, probably, and hadn't said a thing. "Well that's gotta be a hell of a relief."

"Yeah, it's a relief," Rey sighed. Lennie frowned. If that was what passed for relief with Rey these days, he'd hate to hear disappointment.

"Job offer?" Lennie asked.

"Yeah."

"What job offer?"

"In security, for the studio. Background checks, stuff like that. Triple my salary at least."

"No kidding?" Lennie said, impressed. "That's great!"

"Yeah."

"Working from LA?"

"No, New York. And traveling to movie locations."

"Great!"

"Yeah, great. I'm gonna grab some shut-eye," Rey leaned his seat back and closed his eyes, abruptly ending their conversation.

What the hell was with him? Lennie thought. An incredible job offer, and Rey had been more enthusiastic about picking through the garbage at the studio.

Takes all kinds, Lennie thought, once more realizing that there was just no deciphering Rey.

===

_Friday, January 12  
9:12 am_

"So when are you gonna give Giuliani your two weeks notice?" Lennie asked the next day at the Forensics Garage.

"I ain't going anywhere."

"Yeah right," Lennie gestured around them. "Why give up all this for a six-figure income and free travel to exotic countries?"

"Come on, come on, lay off."

"Hey, Rey, I like working with you - but you gotta be nuts to turn down that job. Think of what you could do for your kids with that money-" Lennie broke off as the CSU tech showed up with the Newman car records.

Well, now that was interesting. Apparently Detective Miller, the cop who'd been called in for domestic disturbances when Ellison and Newman were married, had been in the garage before Newman's car was searched. Looking at another car in connection with a robbery. And the original record of his visit to the garage had been subpoenaed by somebody - three guesses who that somebody was, and here's a hint: he used to sleep with Jamie Ross.

Miller. God damn. Why would Miller have been near this car? And what the hell had he done to it?

"So why not?" Lennie picked up after they left the garage. "The job," he said, to Rey's puzzled look. Rey looked at him like he was particularly slow.

"You wanna tell me how I'd explain that one to my wife?"

"Why's Deborah gonna care where you work?" Lennie asked impatiently. "You wouldn't even be moving away from your kids-"

"She knows about Leesa."

"What?!" Lennie stopped in his tracks.

"I told her." Lennie stared at Rey, totally nonplussed. "What?"

"You told her... what? That you've been dating a beautiful woman but you haven't slept with her?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"What for?!"

"Because it's the truth."

"You haven't learned a thing, have you?" Lennie asked in amazement, shaking his head as they left the garage.

"I learned not to lie to my wife," Rey muttered. For all the good it had done him.

===

_6:34 pm_

Rey walked up to his sister's house on autopilot, hoping her asshole husband wasn't there. He did not need one more aggravation today - not after a poor night's sleep on the plane back, jetlag, and a very frustrating encounter with Miller.

They'd looked up the robbery case Miller was supposedly following at the Forensics garage. No relation to him whatsoever, beyond the fact that it was from his precinct. He'd had no reason to be in the garage the day Newman's car was brought in. But when they confronted him on it, he'd basically told them to go to hell. Rey had almost taken a swing at him, he'd been so angry. Luckily Lennie had stepped in and prevented him from doing more than shoving Miller, but it still hadn't done any good. The son of a bitch had been subpoenaed by Newman's defense, he wouldn't admit to having done anything wrong, and they were all still going to have to work like hell to do some damage control.

Rey unlocked the door, walked into Lisa's living room, and stopped short.

Deborah. Sitting with Lisa, having tea. He stared at her as Lisa quickly got up and left the room with a mumbled, "I'll leave you two alone."

"Hi," Deborah said nervously after a long silence.

"Hi." There was another long pause.

"I asked Lisa to let me know when you came into town. I uh... I want - I want to talk to you."

"Talk to me? Or fight with me?" he asked bluntly, too tired and out of sorts to tiptoe around her feelings as he had been doing since this whole mess began.

"Talk to you. Can you... can you sit down?"

"Fine." He warily sat down.

Deborah was silent for so long he was starting to wonder if he should maybe say something when she blurted, "I - I haven't been giving the counseling a chance. I've just been using it to get back at you."

He gazed at her for a moment.

"I... I'd like to go back to counseling. And, and actually try to work on this. I'm not making any promises, but I'll try."

God damn it.

Be careful what you wish for, he thought numbly, you just might get it. For all the praying and hoping he'd done in the last few months, for all he'd wanted to hear her say something like this, that she wanted to try to fix things, now that she was finally saying it...

God damn it. He was finally starting to be OK with this, so of course, what better time for Deborah to show up like this... he stared at the floor.

She wasn't making any guarantees, and of course, she wouldn't. She was too honest for that. She was just offering to try. To go back to the mess and the pain and the heartache that was their counseling, but this time try to make something out of it. Try to fix a marriage that neither one was sure could be fixed any more. A marriage that, even if they "fixed" it, would never be the same as it had been before.

Rey rubbed his eyes tiredly, knowing Deborah was waiting for him to say something, not knowing what the hell she wanted him to say.

"Rey?" she said softly, her voice nervous.

"What?"

"Do... do you want to go back to counseling?" she asked quickly, twisting her hands together. He shrugged, putting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

It would be so simple to just walk away, say the hell with it, give it up. And he realized with tired disbelief that that was exactly what he most wanted to do at this particular moment in time. Let it go, 'cause man, it's gone, his brother had said, and Lennie had been saying the same thing from the beginning as well. Just start over, get on with his life, divorce was not the end of the world. Just be young and unattached.

Except that he wasn't. He'd taken vows and even though he'd broken them, he had meant them when he said them. He supposed he still did. And he still had three children who meant more to him than anything else. They didn't deserve any of what had happened. They did deserve his best efforts at fixing this situation.

And he'd never forgive himself if he walked away now.

Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. Just when divorce was beginning to look like freedom, like the end of penance instead of a penance in and of itself...

He took a deep breath and nodded. OK.

===

_Monday, January 22  
10:03 am_

Lennie glanced around the pleasant little business in Mount Kisco as he and Rey talked to their witnesses. Their latest case, which had started with an ex-cop shot dead with his own gun, in his car at a hooker's stroll - and, incidentally, left hanging out of his pants - had led them around and around and finally to this little Westchester house: Fox Hills Décor, where one of the two ladies running the place claimed to have met the vic to discuss decorating work for the vic's company.

But something was just not right about it. It smelled like... like these ladies were not charging for the services they claimed. Call it cynicism, call it sixth sense, call it working Vice for six years.

Call it a relief, getting out of the damned Ellison case. The entire case had gone down the drain. Jamie had called last Thursday to let them know that the goddamn judge had thrown out their evidence on Newman, because the defense had pretty much proven that Detective Ass-for-brains Miller had planted the evidence. Why? Well, Miller had been called to the Newman-Ellison residence a few times, when Newman beat the crap out of Ellison. Ellison wanted to press charges. Newman begged Miller to mediate, and promised to help him win fame and fortune in Hollywood - screenplays, whatever. Miller had talked Ellison down, but Newman, surprise surprise, had not returned Miller's calls afterwards and finally threatened to call Miller's supervisors if he didn't piss off.

So then Newman's arrested for killing Ellison. Who knew whether Miller felt sorry he'd prevented Newman from being arrested back before he graduated from wife-beating to wife-killing, or whether he was just taking revenge for Newman not returning his calls and frustrating his rise to stardom, but Miller had taken strands from a beige silk blouse taken in as evidence in one of the Newman/Ellison brawls, and planted the fibers in Newman's car.

It didn't matter that, as far as anybody could tell, Miller had nothing to do with the drops of Ellison's blood in the trunk of Newman's car. That Miller had nothing to do with Newman lying about being in New York at the time of Ellison's death, or being in the area where the barong was found. None of that mattered. What mattered was Miller planted some evidence in the car, and so all their car evidence was suspect, and so they didn't have enough evidence for an arrest, and so Newman was free to go.

Sleazy lawyers and stupid cops. They made law enforcement just about impossible.

The one bright spot had come from McCoy, of all people. "Speak up, Your Honour, there's some people in the Bronx who didn't hear you," McCoy had said to the judge when he realized the judge was about to toss their warrant, despite McCoy arguing that only a New York judge was entitled to decide whether a New York warrant was valid or invalid. The judge had fined McCoy two thousand for contempt and ruled against him anyway, but McCoy's remark had apparently had wide play in the local media - and in New York, too.

Rey and Lennie had laughed and declared that sometimes, they could almost like McCoy.

Well, hopefully nothing would derail their current case. The first thing was to tie this nice so-called decorator to their vic, maybe get her fingerprints, see if they matched the victim's car. And then she gave him a perfect opportunity.

"Need any decorating? No job too small," she smiled.

"Well, uh, my partner's thinking about getting a new place, uh, he might need some help," he said to her.

"Yeah, you don't have a card, do you?" Rey stepped in smoothly, following Lennie's cue. He took the brochure their witness handed to him and studied it with interest.

"So what do you think?" Rey asked as they left.

"I think they're lying. They met with the security chief to discuss decorating?"

"I just hope we can get prints off of this." They made their way to the car. "So, Lennie, that stuff about me needing help decorating, that was just to get her to hand me a brochure, right?" Lennie looked at him curiously. "'Cause you know I know how to put together a room." Lennie chuckled as he got in.

"Yeah, I want her prints. I think she was in his car servicing him. I think they're both call girls."

Rey looked back at Fox Hills Décor in surprise, then turned to Lennie. "Call girls? Those two?"

"Think about it, Rey. The vic didn't have anything to do with decorating. And the trail leading from him to them had more twists and turns than a soap opera. And we know he was into hookers."

Rey looked at him askance. "That's a pretty far reach, Lennie."

"Wanna make it interesting?" Lennie grinned. And grinned wider when Rey shook his head, declining to get into yet another losing bet.

"So you find a place yet?"

"Yeah, found one this weekend after I had the girls. I'm gonna sign the lease Thursday. Oh that reminds me, can you drop me off at Deborah's tonight? I gotta pick up some of my stuff."

===

_Tuesday, January 23  
9:10 am _

"Morning," Lennie said absently as Rey sat down at his desk. Rey made some sort of acknowledging sound and immediately took out a file containing Fox Hills clients to interview.

"Oh, Jamie Ross just called. They searched Burger's private plane over the weekend and found Ellison's ring in the toilet. So the judge granted the extradition yesterday."

"Good," Rey murmured, not looking up.

"And Miller's suspended - IAB's getting on his case. None of the stuff we found in Newman's car is gonna be used in the trial, but the DA still wants to bury him."

"Good," Rey said again, and turned a page. Lennie waited a beat, sure that some patented Rey-rant against Miller would be forthcoming, but Rey just sat there, his head buried in the file. Lennie mentally shrugged and turned back to his own work.

"Lennie, did you call Latent about the prints on that brochure?"

"I thought you were gonna do that."

"No, I thought you were. You said you would."

"I said I'd type up the notes on the ladies of Fox Hills. Didn't say anything about Latent."

Rey sighed. "Fine, I'll do it."

Lennie narrowed his eyes. What was going on with Rey? "Did you bring back the ME's report on Keene from your place?"

"Uh... no, I, I didn't have time."

Didn't have time? To pick up a piece of paper? Lennie suddenly took in Rey's appearance.

"You didn't go home last night, did you?" Rey looked up at him, startled.

"What?"

"You didn't go back to your sister's last night." Rey's body language immediately became defensive. "You're wearing yesterday's clothes."

Rey looked down, ignoring Lennie, face colouring slightly. Lennie considered his young partner's expression, closed off and uncomfortable, but not guilty-looking. Which could only mean one thing.

"Sex with the ex is not a good idea, Rey," Lennie ventured. Rey gave a slight sigh and kept his eyes on the paper in front of him. Yeah, he'd guessed it. "You OK?" Rey hesitated, then shook his head silently and turned the page. Lennie waited a beat. "Wanna talk about it?" Rey shook his head again, still concentrating on his work. No surprise there. "Well, I'm here if you change your mind."

"Thanks," Rey said laconically.

Poor dumb kid, Lennie thought. Probably feeling like crap. He thought over the few times he'd gone back to his second wife - the combination of confusion, frustration, disappointment and anger at himself that Rey was feeling were almost palpable.

"Let's go," he said, abruptly getting up.

"What?" Rey asked, startled.

"I wanna go talk to other people who've been in contact with the women of Mount Kisco. See if they're actually call girls." And get you out of the precinct and jar you out of this mood, he thought to himself. Because I'm not gonna slog through yet another day trying to work with a wet blanket.

===

Rey suppressed his impatience as he waited for Lennie to finish making notes from their latest witness interview. Trying not to think about last night, but of course, unable to think of anything else. Wishing Lennie would hurry the hell up so that he could get his mind back on the job.

Last night had been pretty much a replay of the first time, except that thanks to their trip to the drug store last time, at least they didn't have to wait anxiously for her period again like a couple of errant teenagers.

The morning after had been different too. He'd been woken up by Deborah, sitting on the bed, already in a bathrobe, her eyes reddened. Had taken one look at her face and known that they weren't staying together - she looked like she'd been crying. He'd closed his eyes and groaned.

"No, come on," he'd said hopelessly, covering his face with his arm.

Deborah had cleared her throat. "I think you need to leave before the girls wake up."

"Deborah, for God's sake-"

"Last time confused them. I don't want to put them through that again."

"But you don't mind putting me through it," he'd said bitterly. "Christ, Deborah."

"I'm sorry," she'd whispered, and he'd looked at her. She hadn't said that since this mess began - he'd been the one apologizing over and over. "I want - I want things to be OK, but they're not. I can't pretend," her voice trembled, and he sat up, reaching out to comfort her. She drew away. Back to the dark side of the moon. Back to their separate corners, last night's brief reprieve effectively over.

She'd wiped her eyes and said, "I'll let you get dressed," and left the room. Like last night never happened. Like they were strangers who shouldn't see each other unclothed. His own wife.

And he'd dressed and left, like a thief in the night, exchanging awkward goodbyes with Deborah, so that the girls wouldn't know that Daddy had spent the night in the same house as them. Because after all, he didn't belong there any more.

===

_Friday, January 26  
7:30pm_

"What the fuck, how come you're living here?" Jorge said, walking into the small apartment Rey had just signed for. Back in town for the weekend, he'd offered to help Rey move his things from Lisa's and from the church storage room to his new place.

"What? It's clean, it's not in a bad neighbourhood," Rey put down the boxes he was carrying. "And it's furnished."

"It's fucking tiny."

"This is New York. Everything's tiny. Besides, I don't need a bigger place."

"Come on, you can afford better than this."

"Not after I pay Deborah, I can't."

"Pay Deborah? What the hell are you paying her for?"

"Alimony? Child support? Remember?"

"She's a Pequot, she's got her own money - bro, if anything, she oughtta be paying you."

"Oh come on-" Rey began impatiently.

"No, you come on. Are you seriously paying her alimony?"

"She doesn't have a job."

"So she can damn well get a job."

"No way. She's staying home with the kids. They need her."

"You ever hear of day care?"

"Kids need a parent at home."

Jorge stared at him in disbelief. "OK, fine, you're still living in the fifties, whatever. Doesn't mean you need to shell out your lousy cop income to a woman who makes more from that casino than-"

"It's not that much money. She can't live off of it."

"She doesn't need to bleed you dry so you gotta live here."

"Yeah, she does, if the kids are gonna have the kind of life they had before."

"You're kidding me."

"I'm not making my kids suffer any more than they have to."

"Rey, some day you're gonna want a nice place for yourself. If nothing else, bringing a chick to a little closet like this is no way to impress her." Rey opened up a box and tried to figure out where to put its contents, ignoring Jorge. "Or are you still thinking you're gonna toe the Catholic party line and live like a monk the rest of your life? Has it occurred to you that some day you're gonna wanna go on dates like a regular single guy?"

Rey suppressed the desire to shut his brother up by letting him know that yes, as a matter of fact, it had occurred to him. And he had actually dated somebody. And they were still calling each other about once a week or so. That might not impress Jorge, but it just might wipe that condescending smirk off his face.

Yeah, OK, trying to impress his brother. That was about as stupid as taking Lennie's relationship advice seriously. Here's a rule of thumb, Rey told himself: if there's something going on in your life that Jorge or Lennie would approve of, it's probably a bad thing. Stop it.

Not that easy when it came to staying in contact with Leesa. Not only was he not doing anything wrong... it was awfully hard to cut off all contact with a person he really enjoyed talking to. A person who took away the frustration of trying to make things work with Deborah, with a marriage that seemed to be permanently stuck in limbo.

Despite the fact that Deborah really did seem to be trying in counseling, they were going around in circles. Had been for weeks. Every time, the same arguments, the same issues. The same stalled "I love you but I don't trust you." The same petty arguments about the girls. Both of them getting on each other's nerves, no closer to reconciliation than they had been a few weeks ago.

And then there was Leesa. Venting about her job, trading e-mails about interesting factoids, making him smile. Uncomplicated. Interesting. Always with that light edge of casual flirting, which he told himself was safe because she was on the other side of the continent.

Say no to that? Not likely.


	7. Allegation

**CHAPTER 7: ALLEGATION**

_Sunday, February 4_  
_6:35 pm_

Lennie got out of his car, distractedly thinking of the quickest way to get to their latest scene. He'd been paged while out visiting an old buddy in Rego Park, so he'd paged Rey to see if Rey could take first call for him, only to find that Rey was right next door in Forest Hills, dropping his kids off after the weekend. So he'd offered to pick Rey up on the way.

Let's see, if they could wrap up the crime scene within three hours he could still catch the Knicks game afterwards - he looked up, startled, as he heard Deborah's voice from an upstairs window.

"Yeah?! Go to hell!!"

"Very nice, scare the hell outta them, that's a good way to get back at me!!" Rey's voice shot back, then lowered and continued in Spanish. Deborah's angry voice came back, also in Spanish, climbing steadily and finishing with,

"You son of a bitch!!"

"Deborah!! Christ, they can still hear you, they're just in the basement!! Don't you give a shit about them?!" A few more angry words were exchanged in Spanish, and Lennie could tell that Rey was giving Deborah a piece of his mind, even though he couldn't understand a word. He swallowed hard. He'd never heard Rey talk to Deborah in that tone of voice before - didn't think he had it in him.

"GET OUT!! AND DON'T BOTHER COMING BACK!!" Deborah screamed, and a door slammed.

Lennie winced and started back to the car. Maybe he could pretend he just drove up and hadn't heard any of that. Rey came out of his house, looking grimmer than usual, spotted the car, and silently got in. Lennie hastily started the car and drove off. They drove in silence for a few minutes, until Lennie ventured, "You OK?"

"Just fine," Rey bit off his words.

"What happened?"

"I'm a son of a bitch who deserves whatever's coming to him and it doesn't seem to matter that our kids get put through the ringer while I'm being buried in a shitstorm. What do we know about the vic?" Lennie blinked, off-balance, having been sure that Rey would just do his usual avoidance routine. Not sure what to do about what Rey had just bitterly blurted out.

"Uh - not much. Middle-aged black woman, shot in her apartment. Probably Domestic."

"Good night for that kinda thing."

"Rey... are you gonna be able to work this scene?"

"Sure, why wouldn't I?"

Lennie pulled over and stopped the car. "I don't want you to-"

"Lennie, just drive."

"Rey-"

"Drive the fucking car!!" Rey slammed his hand against the car door and glared at him. "I just left my kids crying in the basement because my _ex_-wife called me every name in the book loud enough for the whole neighbourhood to hear, but other than that, everything's fucking FINE, so drive the goddamn car and let's get this thing over with so we can at least put the vic to rest!"

"Rey-"

"Or do I have to take a goddamn cab because you're so busy trying to play marriage counselor that you can't remember which fucking pedal to press?!"

Lennie wordlessly put the car back in gear. They drove for a few minutes, Rey staring out his window, then he rubbed his forehead and cleared his throat.

"Sorry."

Lennie grunted in acknowledgment.

Twenty minutes later they were at the scene. Lennie stopped the car and put a hand out as Rey undid his seatbelt. "You gonna be OK out there?" he asked, keeping his tone neutral and on-the-job.

"Yeah."

"You know, I can do this on my own. The call sounded like it was pretty simple."

Rey shook his head. "Thanks for the offer. I'm fine."

The next two hours were spent talking to witnesses, looking at the crime scene, making notes and gathering evidence on what seemed a pretty simple Domestic. Business as usual. Simple, easy.

"OK, that's that," Lennie said with relief as they wrapped up. 8:30 pm - he could still get in on time for the Knicks. "Where am I taking you?"

"My place," Rey said.

"You OK?"

"Yeah, fine. Oh, crap," Rey muttered to himself.

"What?"

"I was supposed to pick up some clothes I left at Deborah's. What the hell, she's probably tossed them out on the street by now."

"That bad?"

"We've had better days." He paused, then chuckled bitterly. "'We.' That's a laugh. Make that _I_'ve had better days. Let's go. Actually, hang on, you mind dropping me off at 12th and 47th instead?" Lennie gave him a puzzled look. "My gym."

"Hey, you wanna come over and watch the Knicks instead?"

"Watch other people exercising instead of doing it myself?" Rey chuckled. He thought for a minute. "Sure, why not. I won't have cable at my place till Thursday anyway."

===

_Tuesday, February 6  
8:18 pm_

"So much for keeping your children out of it," Morelli commented dryly as they finished telling him about Sunday's fight. Morelli sighed at the guilty but resentful expressions on both of their faces. He'd seen this time and again as separations progressed - parents seemed to forget common sense and decency, went after each other like angry hyenas, and tore their kids apart.

"So. You started talking about Deborah wanting to go back to work and it degenerated into a shouting match, with the children crying in the basement. Why couldn't you just agree talk about it later, after the children were in bed?"

"After they're are in bed?" Deborah asked. "That's my time. He gets plenty of time to be on his own, read, whatever - after the kids are in bed is the only time I get that."

"I'm so sorry having sole custody's such a hardship, Deborah," Rey said sarcastically.

"Rey," Morelli said warningly.

Rey ignored him. "You want me to remind you that I had 'em all weekend? You had plenty of time to watch TV or whatever the hell you wanted to do."

"What the hell would you know about hardship, Rey? I spent the weekend cleaning up the house and trying to get back in shape so I can get my job back at the self-defence training centre-"

"Which I told you, you don't need to take. I'm paying you alimony, damn it, you don't need to-"

"Excuse me if I want to do something more with my life than clean my empty house all weekend."

"Except that you won't just be working on weekends, when I have the kids, you'll be working some weeknights too, when I'm on call, and then who's gonna take care of them?"

"Oh, you can't possibly move your own work around-"

"You knew that when I went into Homicide, you knew I was gonna be working long hours, we agreed that you-"

"I also _thought_ you were going to be living at home!" Deborah stormed. "Not just taking the girls out for fun and games on the weekend, them worshipping you because you're not the one telling them to pick up their toys every day! Not leaving me to do all the drudgework while-"

"Don't you _dare_ make this sound like I'm the one who abandoned the four of you!!" Rey shot back furiously. "_You_ kicked me out-"

"Oh, I know, I've been such a bitch - especially compared to your little LA movie producer, I bet-"

"What the hell does she have to do with this?! I haven't even seen her in weeks!"

"You admitted last week you're still in contact with her."

"Yeah, I'm still in contact with her. And you wanna know why? Because she's smart and interesting and most of all because I don't have to prove myself to her. She's not judging me every second I'm talking to her. She's not attacking me over everything!!"

"Fine. Go to it then. Walk outta here like you did a few weeks ago, let her know the coast is clear and-"

"I said I'm attracted to her! NOT I want to leave you for her!! There's a difference!"

"Really? And I'm supposed to see this difference while you're telling me that you're attracted to another woman?!"

"You're the one who wanted honesty, well, you got it. I'm being real honest here."

"Thank you, that's so considerate of you."

"For what it's worth," Morelli put in, "I don't think Rey staying in contact with this woman is that difficult to understand, given the circumstances."

"What?" Deborah asked in disbelief.

"Deborah, I'm not saying it's acceptable," Morelli said impatiently, "But it's understandable. He's tired of seeing himself through your eyes."

"What?" Rey asked, irritated and confused.

"Seeing yourself as she sees you now. She sees you as somebody who can cheat and lie, somebody who's not trustworthy. It's no wonder you seek companionship from somebody who doesn't do that."

"Whatever," Rey muttered, and Morelli read from his expression that he was biting his tongue to keep from telling Morelli what he thought about this psycho-babble.

"You're not a bad person, Rey. It's difficult to deal with somebody who thinks you are." Morelli took in Rey's suppressed impatience and realized this angle wasn't going anywhere. Not surprising. Most of the men in his parish just didn't deal well with this kind of emotional self-examination, and Rey was no exception.

"So am I supposed to fall worshipping at his feet, let him know he's a big hero, so his feelings don't get hurt?" Deborah said sarcastically. "Is that the only way to save this marriage?" Rey glared at her in disgust, opening his mouth for another angry retort.

"Well, I don't know about you two, but I feel the need for a break coming on," Morelli said brightly, standing up. Deborah and Rey quickly got up and left as well, eager to get away from each other.

This was getting more and more difficult every week, Morelli thought to himself as he got himself a coffee. Rey and Deborah both had quick tempers, but before October they'd always stopped short of deliberately hurting each other. Unfortunately, now that they weren't holding back, their tempers were incinerating what little was left of their love for each other.

Morelli sipped his coffee, bracing himself to go back in. In some ways, this counseling, unpleasant as it was, was better than what they'd had when most of the hostility was coming from Deborah and most of the efforts at conciliation coming from Rey. Civilized as that had been, it had gone precisely nowhere, because Deborah wasn't really putting in an honest effort. But now they were both angry at each other, and both angry at themselves. It made for extremely volatile sessions. And it was anybody's guess whether these sessions would be worth it in the end.

"OK, where were we?" Morelli said as they came back.

"Nowhere," Deborah muttered. Morelli abruptly decided to change tactics.

"All right, then, why are we here?" Rey and Deborah both looked at him in surprise. "No, really. The last few weeks, I've heard nothing but... bitching, from both of you. Petty squabbles. I'm just not sure what we're doing here any more. Because from what you've told me, other than occasional fights in front of the children like last Sunday, most of the time you two do just fine when you're together outside of counseling. So why come here at all? You both said you wanted to keep trying... but what exactly are you trying for?" They stared at him, off-balance. "Rey?"

"Uh..."

"Why are you still coming here?"

"I want us to be a family again," Rey said impatiently.

"Which means?"

Rey frowned. "I'm tired of not living with my own kids."

"You still see them on weekends," Morelli pointed out.

"It's not the same. Olivia showed up with a missing tooth this weekend - I didn't even know she had one loose," Rey said uncomfortably. "And they... they don't deserve to get shuffled around between two single parents."

"What's wrong with that?" Morelli challenged. "I'm playing devil's advocate, of course, but I want you to think about this."

Rey considered the question for a moment, then shrugged. "It's just better for kids to have two parents. When I lived with them, Deborah could take Olivia and Isabel while I showed Serena how to tie her shoelaces, or, or I could take Serena and Isabel while Deborah taught Olivia her letters. That just doesn't happen when there's only one of us for three kids. They're missing out on a lot."

"Deborah?" Morelli prompted her.

"It's harder on them," Deborah agreed. "It's not how we wanted our girls to grow up."

"So you're doing this for the children." They both nodded. "What about for each other?" They looked at him blankly. "If you didn't have children together, would you still want to patch things up?" He read the sudden heightened discomfort in both of them, eyes avoiding each other, faces flushing slightly.

"I'll take that as a no," he said evenly after a moment.

Silence.

"Why not?" Rey and Deborah stared at him, nonplussed. "OK, let me guess. You've been tearing at each other for so long, gotten so deep into resenting each other and mistrusting each other, that you've pretty much forgotten that this started out as a good marriage. Worth saving in and of itself, not just for the sake of your children." Discomfort, eyes avoiding his. "And... I'm guessing you're realizing that your marriage will never be what it was. Am I right?" Shrugs. "Let's say you're right, it'll never be what it was. Does that mean it's worth throwing away?"

Rey drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair, Deborah studied her nails, and Morelli suddenly felt tired of it all. At least for tonight. "OK. I'm going to wrap this up early today, but I want you to think about what I said and I'm going to give you some homework."

"Homework?" Deborah repeated blankly.

"Homework. For next week. I want you to write down what was good about your marriage before all of this. Write down why you fell in love, what it was that drew you to each other. Write down what happened when you decided to get married, when you decided to have children."

"Oh, for God's sake," Deborah muttered

Rey stared at Morelli askance. "You're not serious."

"I'm dead serious. Write down all of that, in detail. I know, I know, it sounds corny, and it probably is, but in my opinion it's worth a try. This constant screaming certainly isn't getting anybody anywhere."

===

_Thursday, February 8_  
_6:18 pm_

Rey walked into his bachelor pad, putting away his jacket and getting himself a beer from the fridge.

Bachelor pad. Not the home of a married father of three, but a bachelor. Small, spartan, and echoingly empty sometimes, but it wasn't all bad. After all, if he didn't want to pick up dirty socks from the floor, nobody would care. He was a normally neat person, he didn't need a wife to nag at him to pick up after himself, but it was nice that if he forgot, she wasn't there to remind him. Nor did he have to keep the place tidy for the kids. Wednesdays and weekends, he'd make sure there were no photos of crime scenes or any other adult-only stuff lying around, and that was that.

Rey sipped his beer, debated finishing up the paperwork on the Mount Kisco hooker case versus doing his counseling 'homework'.

Homework. What a load of crap. He looked at the phone, debating calling Leesa instead.

_He's tired of seeing himself through your eyes._

Another load of crap.

And yet... that might be the reason why he so often felt like calling Leesa after counseling. Because he didn't want the endless useless brooding that came after each of those lovely encounters with Deborah. Talking with Leesa was the closest he came these days to feeling the way he'd felt before his affair - no introspection, no guilt.

OK, don't be an idiot. Don't go calling Leesa to avoid this stupid thing - get it over with, then you won't have anything to avoid. Feeling unbelievably awkward, Rey sat down at his kitchen table and picked up a pen and paper.

_What was good about our marriage before_. Should that be a title? He put the pen down. This was ridiculous.

No, come on, you're making an effort. Think about the good times.

OK, Deborah cooking while he played with their girls. She loved to cook and he didn't, and when they were together, the girls could have both a game of tag and a good meal. Now, it was one or the other, because neither of them could do both. Deborah plunked them in front of the TV and he either fed them takeout or healthy, but unimaginative sandwiches.

No, he was thinking about the kids. He was supposed to be thinking of Deborah.

He thought back to their first days together. What was it that had first sparked his interest?

Harry's girlfriend's party. He'd been half-heartedly trying to pick up a girl from his English Lit class, who wasn't that interesting but had been sending signals all term. Absently thinking that if she kept playing coy, he just might give up for the night and join Pete Carreras, who was trying to out-drink some frat boys. Then he heard raised voices in the hallway, gave the EngLit girl some excuse, and got up to see what was going on.

"I said, no THANK YOU," a girl said very clearly, putting her hand on the chest of a big frat boy who was leaning towards her with a drunken grin on his face, keeping him from getting any closer. "Besides, I don't do Search and Rescue," she flicked her eyes down to his crotch in disdain.

Rey had snickered and taken a closer look at the speaker - a small, dark girl he vaguely remembered being introduced to at the beginning of the party. She hadn't made an impression on him then - he was into tall leggy elegant types, and she seemed shy and bookish. But this was a different girl - dark eyes snapping with anger, colour high, self-assured and obviously not one bit intimidated by the hulking oaf who towered over her boozily. Rey had stepped in.

"Problem?" he'd asked the girl. He'd fished around his memory for her name. "You OK... Deborah?"

"Fine," Deborah had answered through clenched teeth.

"Hey, she yours?" the frat boy had asked, sensing he'd made a mistake. Rey had glanced down at Deborah and judged that she was angry enough to take a swing at him if he went along with the frat boy and said she was 'his'. Thinking quickly, he'd decided to put her off balance and get rid of the stupid drunk at the same time.

"She's my sister," he said easily. "This guy giving you a hard time, Sis?" She'd gaped at him, then giggled despite herself as the idiot frat boy stumbled off quickly with a mumbled apology.

"You didn't have to do that. I was handling him myself," she said defensively.

"Yeah, I could see that," Rey grinned at her, trying to dispel some of her irritation. "But you shouldn't have to."

And he'd backed off, judging that, intriguing as she seemed, she probably wouldn't appreciate him putting moves on her right away.

But he'd remembered her fiery expression, her proud posture, her fearlessness, and been surprised and pleased to see her at chapel a couple of weeks later. Turned out she'd been attending about as regularly as he had (which was to say, whenever papers and exams allowed) and he just hadn't noticed her until that party. She was certainly on his radar now.

And everything had been so easy as they got to know each other and soon started dating. They thought the same way about so many things - religion, politics, family. Their backgrounds were similar. Even their Indian heritage, though his was South and hers North American, had been yet another sign that showed they were right together.

And they had been right together. They'd been everything a couple was supposed to be. Friends. Partners. Lovers.

How could he write any of that down?

How could he write down how he felt when he asked her to marry him and she said yes? How he felt the day they vowed to be together till death did them part? The day they first heard Olivia's heartbeat on the fetal monitor? The first time he came home from work to his wife and baby?

How could he write how he felt when she fell asleep with her arm over his chest, nestled into his neck, like he could keep her safe even while she slept? How he felt as he drifted off, the scent of her hair and the feel of her soft, warm skin lulling him to sleep?

Or when they were making love? When she was astride him, her head thrown back as she focused on her own pleasure. He'd gaze up at her enthralled, not knowing whether he was more intensely aroused by the feel of her body, by her enthusiastic response to every move he made or by the knowledge that she would turn all of her passion to his needs once she was sated. And she would take him higher than he thought possible, so that he sometimes felt like God Himself was blessing them both.

He shivered, turning his mind away from that particular memory of Deborah. It didn't do any damn good to fantasize about her, all that did was frustrate him. But it seemed that even safe memories did nothing but frustrate right now.

Safe memories like her running by his side through Central Park, so strong, so full of energy, despite having borne three kids. Her laughter when she told him about something funny the girls had done. Her eyes smiling at his when she came to the precinct to bring him lunch.

He felt his eyes burning and squeezed them shut. No, don't, he thought, anger warring with sorrow, this is ridiculous. He swept the notebook, pen and beer bottle off the table, chastising himself immediately for that stupid display of temper. Don't. Don't lose control.

Except there was nobody here who would care if he did. There was nobody here who would give a damn or even know if he cried like a child for hours or trashed his entire apartment.

There was nobody here, in this fucking empty bachelor pad. And it was his own damn fault.

He buried his head in his arms and stayed at the kitchen table, breathing deeply until the urge to give in to his sorrow passed. Then he impatiently wiped his eyes, cleaned up the mess from the broken beer bottle, and turned on the TV. He couldn't do this 'homework' right now. He couldn't do it at all.

===

_Tuesday, February 13_  
_2:32 pm_

"Curtis residence," Deborah answered the phone crisply.

"Deborah, hi," Rey said hurriedly. "Look, I know it's counseling night, but - you know there was a cop shooting today?"

"I know, I heard on the radio. Robbery at a liquor store? You caught it?"

"Yeah, they uh, they carjacked a limo and took the driver. We think they'll probably try to skip town-"

"And you're going to be looking for them all day and you don't know if you'll make it to counseling tonight," Deborah guessed.

Rey paused. "I-I'm not trying to duck out. I didn't do the homework, but that's not why-"

"Rey, they're cop killers," Deborah said fiercely. "Don't worry about counseling. Go catch them, I'll reschedule with Father Morelli."

There was a slight pause on the other end of the line. "OK. Thanks."

Deborah hung up, fervently hoping Rey would hunt down the bastards but also somewhat amused at his phone call. That never would have happened when they were living together. An important case was an important case, and it never would have crossed his mind to apologize when the needs of the job occasionally came before their marriage.

===

_Wednesday, February 14_  
_6:32 pm_

Deborah stood at the entrance to the living room, unobserved, taking in the scene. Olivia and Serena sat quietly watching a movie, Olivia on the floor and Serena next to Rey on the couch. Rey had fallen asleep, somewhat predictably, and Isabel had snuggled up to him and fallen asleep too. Now they lay together, her small hands clutching his sweatshirt, his arm holding her close protectively.

Rey had called to let her know he probably wouldn't be taking the girls tonight, even though it was his weeknight with them and even though they'd been looking forward to Valentine's Day with Daddy. He'd explained, his voice rough with fatigue, that he'd been up all night. They'd caught one of the cop-killers, Henry Harp, trying to leave town, but Harp had collapsed from a gunshot wound and been sent to the hospital. There, he'd told them that he would only say where the hostage was if they gave him an extremely sweet deal on the cop killing. The DA's office had given the police department ten hours to try to find the hostage before making the deal.

They were so close, Rey had told Deborah tiredly. They'd been so damn close to finding him, but they'd gone overtime and McCoy had pulled the plug and made the deal. And when they got to the hostage, they discovered he'd been dead the whole time. All their work for nothing, and now a cop-killer was gonna get fifteen years instead of the needle he deserved.

Deborah had listened to Rey's weary, discouraged voice and suggested he drop by anyway. Have his visit with the girls at home, since he wasn't in any shape to take them on his own. When he arrived, exhausted, she'd handed him some clothes that he'd left behind at Christmas, pushed him towards the stairs, and told him to just keep the girls company in the living room after he took a shower. She would cook for them all.

"You sure?" he'd asked.

"Hey, we missed our counseling fight this week," she'd teased gently. "So I'm feeling generous." He'd grinned wryly and headed upstairs.

Deborah smiled as she gazed at Rey and Isabel. Isabel's eyes were very much like Deborah's, and when she was awake she didn't look much like Rey. But now, their eyes closed, their faces close together and relaxed in sleep, it was easy to see the resemblance between them. Isabel's face was like a softened, smaller version of Rey's - cheekbones that would probably be high once she lost her baby fat, mouth and jaw the same shape.

She was so happy, in her own quiet way, whenever he was around. Isabel had been deeply affected by all of this. Olivia had been by turns whiny, nervous, and angry at Rey. Serena had grown rebellious and sullen with Deborah. But Isabel had just grown more and more quiet, unable to understand why Rey wasn't there any more, often gazing at their family portrait for long periods of time. And whenever he was around, she attached herself to him possessively, as she had now.

Deborah frowned pensively. Isabel shouldn't have to do that. This homey little scene shouldn't be an anomaly - it should be something they all took for granted.

And it wasn't just Rey's fault that it wasn't.

She knelt down next to him, gently shook his shoulder. "Rey," she whispered.

"Mm?" Rey slowly woke up.

"Rey, I have to wake up Isabel or she'll be up all night."

"Mm, right," he glanced down at Isabel, still snuggled close against his chest. Smiled as she wrinkled her nose slightly in her sleep. "I think I was dreaming about a dancing cucumber in a sombrero," Rey murmured, still a little out of it.

Deborah chuckled. "You weren't dreaming, that's the new Veggietales video the girls are watching." Rey glanced at the screen, where, sure enough, a cucumber was singing. With a tomato and an asparagus. No sombreros, though.

"How long were we asleep?" he asked.

"Not that long. About half an hour. I have to wake her up, but you should go upstairs, get some more sleep." He raised his eyebrows slightly and she smiled at him. "Go on. I'll save you leftovers and I'll wake you up when the girls are ready for bed, OK?"

===

_9:30 pm_

"They're asleep already?" Deborah asked as Rey came downstairs.

"I think Olivia's gonna be up a little longer. I left her nightlight on. Serena and Isabel are out cold."

"I'm surprised you were able to get them to go to sleep at all. They were really looking forward to seeing you today for Valentine's - I had to promise them chocolate treats tomorrow if they went to bed without a fuss."

"Oh, they were pretty good. They gave me their Valentine's cards and I promised I'd take them out for ice cream Saturday."

"Pretty good deal for them, then - chocolate and ice cream," Deborah chuckled. "How are you?"

"Better, thanks. I really needed that nap."

"Ready for dinner?"

"Oh - thanks." Rey sat down and gave an appreciative whistle as Deborah uncovered a plate of leftovers. Chicken, corn, steamed carrots, rice... quite a difference from his regular sandwich and salad. Deborah bustled about, cleaning the kitchen, before joining him at the table and asking him about the cop shooting. Partway through dessert, he put down his fork.

"Deborah... what's going on?"

"What?"

"Not that I don't appreciate this, but... what's going on with you?"

"You mean why didn't I just shove you out of here on three hours sleep and no food for god knows how long as soon as the kids were asleep?" Deborah smiled ruefully.

"I wasn't gonna put it that way, but... yeah."

Deborah shrugged. "It's Valentine's Day," she said dismissively. Rey looked at her skeptically, and she relented. "You said you didn't do the homework Father Morelli asked us to do... well, I did."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

"It made me think, that's all," she said uncomfortably. "About the way things were before. It just... it made me think."

"Me too," he said quietly.

"I thought you didn't do it."

"I didn't - I uh, couldn't write it down. But..."

"But we were pretty good together, weren't we?" Rey looked away from her. "Weren't we?"

"Yeah."

"Think we'll ever be like that again?" Rey shrugged, and Deborah reached for his hand hesitantly, saying, "I know I want that back."

Rey sighed tiredly. "Deborah, you've said that before. And, and then we try in counseling and..."

"I know." She stroked his fingers gently. "But... maybe if we can try to do this for us, not just for the kids... do you think that'll help?"

"Baby, I don't know what'll help any more," he said quietly, and they were silent for a long time.

Deborah cleared her throat. "How about wearing our wedding rings again, for a start?" she said brightly, and he chuckled.

"Sure, if that makes you feel any better. If you haven't tossed them both out." Deborah smiled at him and went to the kitchen cabinet, got out a small box and came back to the table. They gazed at the two gold bands in the box for a moment, then Deborah picked up Rey's and handed him hers.

"Might as well start somewhere," she said, slightly embarrassed. "Happy Valentine's Day?"

He chuckled tiredly again. "Sure. Whatever you say. Happy Valentine's Day," he slipped her ring onto her finger. They smiled at each other, both amused at the silly symbolism of the moment, but also comforted by the hopefulness of the simple act.

===

_Wednesday, February 27_  
_1:30 pm_

"Mr. Newman told us he was in Los Angeles the night of the murder, but later we determined he was in New York," Rey said on the stand two weeks later.

"Did Mr. Newman tell you anything about his ex-wife?" McCoy asked.

"Yes, he said he suspected she was having a sexual relationship with her personal trainer."

"Thank you," McCoy said, and sat down.

"Did Mr. Newman seem upset about this supposed relationship?" Ms. Joyner, one of Newman's attorneys, began the cross.

"He seemed to shrug it off," Rey replied. "But later we determined he was prone to fits of jealous violence while they were married."

"And you learned that from whom? The detective who planted evidence against Mr. Newman?"

"Objection!" McCoy called out.

"I'll rephrase: from the detective who allegedly planted evidence against Mr. Newman?"

"It was corroborated by other officers," Rey clarified, irritated that Det. Miller's idiocy, proven or not, still had to be an issue.

"Friends of the detective who allegedly planted evidence against Mr. Newman."

"Objection!"

"Sustained."

"OK, Detective Curtis. Let's talk about your friends," Joyner said easily. "When you first flew to California, you weren't after Mr. Newman, were you?"

"No, at that time we had another suspect."

"Evan Grant, Heidi Ellison's personal trainer."

"Yes."

"But you changed your focus to Eddie Newman after you began a sexual relationship with a woman who hates Eddie Newman, isn't that right?"

What? "I don't know what you're talking about," Rey said, honestly baffled.

"You don't know Leesa Lundquist?" Joyner asked skeptically.

"Yes, she's an executive at Mattawin Studios," he answered, irritated at the non-sequiturs. All of a sudden he put two and two together, and didn't like the answer he got. He glanced down at McCoy, who was staring at him intently.

"Where Eddie Newman has consistently thwarted her desire for promotion."

"I wouldn't know anything about that."

"You don't know he refused to have his movies supervised by the woman you were sleeping with?"

"Hey I wasn't sleeping with Miss Lundquist-"

"Oh? She spent the night in your hotel room for a script conference?"

"I wasn't even in the room that night!" he protested. Why the hell was McCoy just sitting there?!

"Is that why she came to visit you in New York a week later? Because she liked sleeping in empty hotel rooms?"

"Objection!" McCoy said hastily. Finally. Rey glared at him.

"Sustained."

"Was Leesa Lundquist sleeping with that other detective too? Were you all framing Eddie Newman together?"

"Objection!"

"Sustained! That's enough, Miss Joyner."

"I'm sorry, Your Honour. I have nothing further for this witness," Joyner said disparagingly.

===

"Hey! What the hell's the matter with you, McCoy? Why didn't you stop that sooner?" Rey asked furiously as they exited the courtroom.

"I might have been able to if you'd told me about it!" McCoy snapped back, equally angry. One thing he hated was surprises in the courtroom. He'd been caught flat-footed by something that he should have been informed about. Curtis and Briscoe weren't that naive, they should have known that they needed to at least let the prosecutor know that one of them had slept with a witness before taking the stand, for God's sake.

"There's nothing to tell!" Rey fumed back, and stalked off, Lennie following behind.

"What was that about?" Jamie asked McCoy curiously.

"Just a little upset his wife's about to find out he had an affair on the evening news," McCoy informed her. Great. Of all the times for Det. Holier-than-thou Curtis to be a human being and do something indiscreet, it had to be during the media circus that was the Ellison trial. McCoy reflected bitterly that it would serve Curtis right if his wife walked out on him over this. He'd done something far more unforgivable in Jack's eyes than break marriage vows. He'd thrown a wrench into McCoy's case.

"I told you, you shoulda gone to bed with her," Lennie pointed out to Rey, handing him his coat. "You're getting the grief, you shoulda had the gravy."

Rey rubbed his forehead in dismay as they started down the courthouse steps. Shit. There was just no way in hell that this wouldn't make it onto the evening news. The Heidi Ellison trial was high profile - no way the media wouldn't jump all over the fact that the defense alleged one of the investigating detectives had slept with a witness.

And Deborah was sure to see it.

Fuck.

Just when things seemed to be going better with Deborah. Just when they were doing so damn well in counseling, when they were spending a bit of time together when he picked up or dropped off the girls, when they were actually starting to talk about him moving back in some day...

And over a woman he hadn't even wanted to get involved with. Well, OK, a woman he'd very much wanted to get involved with, but whom he'd tried to keep at arm's length precisely so that he wouldn't be tempted to screw up again.

"Thanks a lot, Lennie," he muttered.

"Oh so now this is my fault?"

"It wasn't even my idea to go out with her in the first place!" Rey snapped at him.

"Hey, I just thought you might actually relax a little," Lennie pointed out humorously. "'Cause I gotta tell you, you've been a real joy to work with since your split-up, a real ray of sunshine, pardon the pun."

"What, if I got laid I might be easier to work with? Gimme a break," Rey said in disgust.

"There is a whole world out there, you know. And I don't know if you've noticed, but there's some very attractive women in it."

"You're full of it. You've been complaining that I need to relax since the day we started to work together, only now all of a sudden it's 'cause I'm not getting any."

"No, it's because you're hanging on to something that's gone," Lennie dropped his joking tone. "Deborah's not the only woman in the world."

"Look, I don't know what I was thinking the day that - but I do know what part of me I was thinking with. That's what got me into this mess. So I've kept zipped, thanks a lot."

"Yeah, and it's done you a lotta good. You know Deborah's gonna hear about this. And she's not gonna believe that you were your regular saintly self with Leesa. Give it up, Rey. It's over."

Rey didn't bother to answer him as they got into the car and drove back to the precinct in uncomfortable silence.

===

Back at the precinct, Rey picked up a note on his desk and frowned. Damn. He couldn't handle this right now.

"What's that?" Lennie asked.

"Leesa's in town, she wants me to call her back," he sighed heavily, feeling a headache coming on.

"Oh, no, a beautiful woman wants to see you. Write to Dear Abby. Wish I had problems like that. Oh, sorry, I forgot, it's my fault you're in this terrible situation," Lennie took out a file and started to work. The hell with trying to help Rey through his marital breakdown anyway.

Rey crumpled up the note and tossed it into the trash, then regarded Lennie for a long moment. "OK, I'm probably gonna regret saying anything, but here goes." He waited until Lennie looked up and tried to speak calmly. "Look, I know how you feel about marriage. Everybody knows how you feel about marriage."

"OK," Lennie nodded to him to continue.

"Me, I like being married. I'd like to stay married. Can you get that?"

"You're not married, Rey," Lennie said bluntly.

"I'm separated," Rey countered evenly. "Separated is not the same as divorced."

"Potato, po-tah-to," Lennie said dismissively. Rey felt his forced calm start to erode.

"Just because your marriages failed, you wanna make sure everybody else's do too? You wanna pull everybody down to your level?"

"You're just hanging on while she plays you-"

"I'm the one who screwed up!" he exclaimed, exasperated, then lowered his voice, remembering they were in the squad room. "Deborah didn't do anything wrong! I've been pissed off at her for keeping me hanging but it's my fault we're in this mess in the first place! So back off!"

"You committed adultery, Rey, not murder. Get over it." Rey opened his mouth for a retort but Lennie continued. "So she had a right to be pissed off. There's a big difference between being pissed off and keeping you hanging for months. What is this, you go to counseling, you don't go to counseling, you can stay over, you can't stay over, get your own place, don't bother, come on home-"

"_I_ fucked up!!" Heads turned and Rey breathed in to calm himself. "It's my fault! I have to take responsibility for that!" he said, still angry but trying to at least keep his voice down. Trying to ignore the little voice in his head reminding him that a big part of him agreed with everything Lennie was saying.

"And how long are you gonna let her make you pay for one mistake? When are you gonna decide enough is enough and get on with your life?"

"Get on with my life - what life? Being 'young and unattached' and being a weekend Daddy? That was good enough for you, it's not good enough for me! I don't want that for my daughters!!"

"Kids get over it."

"Yeah? Remember that great little lunch you had with Cathy? That sound like she got over it?" Lennie's eyes narrowed and Rey knew he'd scored a hit. "You think I wanna hear that from my own daughters?"

"That's a cheap shot," Lennie said tightly. Rey felt a brief flicker of guilt - that really had been a bit over the line, but what the hell. Lennie had been stepping way over a lot of lines lately too.

"Think that's a cheap shot? Here's another one. You're not supposed to drink. How would you like it if I kept after you, telling you it's no big deal, I drink all the time, why don't you have just one drink, Lennie, help you relax, feel a little better, come on, who would it hurt-"

"Lay off!" Lennie turned his back on him.

"Feels nice, doesn't it?"

"It's not the same thing!"

"The hell it's not! Drinking screwed up your life and being unfaithful screwed up mine!" he shot back angrily, not caring who overheard them. "I don't ever wanna do that again! I felt like shit afterwards, I felt lower than dirt, and you know damn well what that feels like! And I am NEVER gonna feel that way again!!"

Profaci cleared his throat and leaned over their desks. "Hey, fellas... you wanna take this outside?" he suggested politely, nodding at the squad room full of people trying to ignore their rather vocal argument. Rey blew out his breath in frustration, fighting down the urge to tell Profaci exactly where to shove his helpful advice. This wasn't Profaci's fault, and Profaci was right, this wasn't the best place for him and Lennie to air out their disagreement. He pulled out a file and tried to figure out something to do to take his mind off this useless debate with Lennie. And take his mind off what Deborah's reaction would be when she watched the news tonight.

"So, you gonna call Leesa back, or hasn't it occurred to you that she wants to be more than just friends?" Lennie asked sarcastically. Rey's resolve to keep his mouth shut evaporated and he tossed down the file he'd just picked up.

"What, you think it just didn't occur to me to sleep with her?" he glared at Lennie. "You think I'm blind, I don't even notice a pretty girl who's coming on to me?"

"That's what it looks like, yeah."

"You think I don't wanna sleep with her? You think it's been easy watching late night movies and getting real friendly with myself on a regular basis again? It hasn't! But I'm not gonna hop into bed with another woman just to scratch an itch for a couple hours! Not when there's a chance I might still save my marriage!"

"I know all about trying to save marriages, remember?"

"You know all about _not_ saving marriages. Maybe if you'd tried just a little bit harder you mighta saved yours, ever think of that?"

"That didn't have anything to do with trying, I was an alcoholic-"

"Yeah, that's what you say. You know what? I don't believe in alcoholism, I think it's just an excuse. Lemme prove it to you, just have one drink, Lennie, just one, come on, you can do it-"

"Lay off!" Lennie was getting really pissed off now.

"Come on," Rey wheedled, "vodka's whatcha had that night, don't you want any right now? Or maybe whiskey? Or gin, that's really good with-"

"Shut up!!" Lennie looked down, trying to ignore Rey by looking at the report he'd been working on.

"And you know what?" Rey dropped his voice to a friendly banter, "I won't even tell anybody, so c'mon, what's the harm? Let's just go to a bar, Lennie, you find a good one, you know every bar in Manhattan, and you and me, we'll have a couple drinks. I'll pick up the first girl I see and you can get good and drunk like you did the day Mickey Scott died, and nobody's ever gonna know. I know I'll feel better, no back issues of Hustler for me tonight, and how about you, I bet you'd really like-"

"BACK OFF!!" Lennie shouted at him. Heads turned in the squad room. Van Buren looked over at them and pursed her lips, her eyebrows shooting up.

Rey backed off. Things had to be pretty bad for Lennie to lose his temper like that, and he'd pushed pretty hard. But at least he'd shut Lennie up.

===

Half an hour later, Profaci wandered over to their desks, studying an arrest report as he approached. "Hey, Curtis-"

"What?!" Rey snapped irritably.

"What the hell is with you two today?" Profaci asked, annoyed as Rey had seldom seen easygoing Profaci be.

"Nothing," Rey muttered.

"Nothing? The two of you've been snapping at each other all afternoon like an old married couple-"

"Funny you should put it like that, Profaci," Lennie interrupted caustically.

"Why's that?"

"I'll tell you what's wrong with Rey, this afternoon the defense brought up our fine young married detective's affair with a witness-"

"What?!" Profaci's eyebrows shot up and he stared at Rey in surprise.

"-only our fine young detective didn't actually have an affair, because he's still hung up on-"

"Because he's still married!" Rey broke in, furious. "Would you get that through your head? We're not all like you, Lennie, we can't all screw up our families and still sleep just fine at night!!"

"Curtis and Briscoe, in my office! Now!" Van Buren's firm voice snapped out over the suddenly subdued squad room.

===

"Look, uh... I'm sorry," Lennie said awkwardly as he sat himself back down at his desk, after a rather thorough reaming out from Van Buren for both of them and a long walk around the block for Lennie. "Believe it or not, I was trying to help."

"I know," Rey didn't look up from the interview notes he was transcribing.

"You're right though, I'm not the biggest groupie the institution of marriage has ever had."

"No, you're not."

"Can I do anything?"

"Don't try to help." Rey looked up as soon as the words were out of his mouth, aware that that had come out somewhat more brusquely than he meant it to. He met Lennie's eyes and smiled slightly, taking the sting out of his words. Lennie smiled back, glad to have things back out of hostile territory.

"Fair enough." Lennie paused for a second. "So uh... back issues of Hustler?" he asked humorously. Somehow he just couldn't picture clean-cut Rey buying Hustler. Rey grinned sheepishly.

"OK, OK, Playboy. I was trying to make a point. I didn't want you to make some smart-ass comment like 'don't you buy Playboy just for the articles.'"

"You mean you don't?" Lennie asked in mock dismay. Rey chuckled, then sobered and regarded Lennie seriously for a moment.

"Lennie, I'm uh - I'm sorry too. That was some pretty low blows I pulled about your daughter and drinking and all that."

"Forget it." Lennie cleared his throat. "Look, for what it's worth... I do hope you work this out."

"Yeah, I know," Rey picked up his pen again and absently transcribed another couple of lines. "You just don't think there's a snowball's chance in Hell."

There was a brief silence as Lennie wisely kept his mouth shut.

"Me neither," Rey said softly, still writing automatically. "Not after this afternoon."

"No?" Lennie looked at him more closely.

Rey shook his head. "I have to try, though. It's not over until I sign the divorce papers. Until then, there's still a chance."

"Would you sign? Or contest it?"

"No." Rey put his pen down. "If it gets that far, I won't contest it." He stared at his notes, not looking up at Lennie, but not working either. "It's just... I wasn't supposed to do anything like that, you know? Break my vows. It's a big deal to me. I wasn't... this wasn't supposed to happen."

"It's never supposed to happen," Lennie said gently. Rey shrugged. "Why's it such a big deal?" Lennie asked curiously. Rey was quiet for a moment.

"You remember about a year ago, we had that case with the doctor who was cheating on his wife with hookers? And you said any guy who could get away with it would do it in a second?"

"And you asked me what gutter I was raised in," Lennie recalled their conversation pretty well. He'd called Rey 'Cardinal Curtis' or something.

Rey sighed. "I was raised in a gutter too," he admitted. "At least when it came to cheating. My old man, he went to church, we all did. We went every Sunday, took Communion, did Confirmation, my brother and me were altar boys... and my old man grabbed at every skirt that came his way. Damn hypocrite," he said bitterly. "I saw what that did to my mother. I never wanted to be like that."

"You're not like that. It was once, Rey."

"For some things, once is all it takes."

===

_Friday, February 29_  
_7:30 pm_

"It's not true," Rey told Deborah, his voice low so the girls wouldn't hear too much. "I know what they said on the news, but it's not true. I told you what happened with her."

"That's nice, Rey," Deborah replied icily. "It's nice to hear that now that we're separated you're being faithful. If only you could have been faithful while we were married, this wouldn't even be an issue."

"Deborah." Rey blew out his breath, tried again. "She's attractive. I... I spent some time with her. I told you that. But I wasn't unfaithful to you."

"How do I know this isn't some little evasion, telling me you were faithful when really, you slept with her after you signed the papers so technically, that's not actually infidelity-"

"You wanna hear it straight? I _never_ went to bed with her. Before or after we signed those papers, which were your idea, not mine!"

"Coats everybody, it's time to leave," Deborah said to the girls, cutting him off.

"Can't Daddy come home?" Olivia asked plaintively.

"Not tonight, baby," Rey told her. "Come on."

Olivia lifted Isabel down from the windowsill and carried her to the front door to put on their coats and boots.

"You don't believe me," Rey picked up their conversation after the girls had gone past.

"I _do_ believe you, Rey, that's the problem," Deborah replied, keeping her voice low too. "I believed everything you said for nine years."

"Then why don't you believe me now?"

"I don't like feeling like this - everything is open to question."

"Not you and me. Not the girls. That's real, you _know_ that's real," Rey said, thoroughly frustrated. She gazed at him, searching his face for any hint of deception, finding only an ardent wish to make her believe him.

Did that come from a cheater's desire to cover his tracks again? A desire to have a wife and kids and other women on the side whenever he felt like it? That age-old male drive to have his cake and eat it too?

Or was this just Rey, the man she loved, the man who'd risked their marriage when there was no reason for him to do so, because he couldn't live with having lied to her? Rey, who had written a letter to her telling her how much he loved her despite his betrayal, how much it killed him to have betrayed her even just once?

Which one was he?

"Daddy," Serena called out, interrupting the moment. "Pick me up."

"Yeah, baby," Rey said, breaking off their gaze and moving over to Serena. He picked her up and drew closer to the window. "You wanna see-" he broke off as his phone rang, and glanced back at Deborah. "Can you get that?"

Deborah picked up the phone. "Hello?"

"Hello?" said a woman's voice. "This is Leesa Lundquist, is Rey there?"

"Yes..." Deborah said, feeling herself go numb. "He's here."

"Who is it?" Rey asked, turning from the window, still holding Serena. So innocent-looking. Son of a bitch.

"It's your girlfriend."

===

"Hi," Leesa began apologetically as Rey approached her table and sat down.

"Hi."

"I usually have a better sense of timing." Rey looked away, not particularly wanting to think of the scene that had just transpired at his apartment.

"Want me to tell her what a loyal husband you were?" Rey looked down. "Guess not," Leesa finally said.

"I'm gonna do whatever it takes," Rey said firmly. "I gotta get back with her and the kids."

"So. That's a no on the job offer," Leesa paused. "And on me."

There wasn't anything to say to that, so Rey didn't bother. "You know what's going on."

"Well at least you didn't turn out to be gay," Leesa joked weakly. Rey didn't respond, and Leesa changed the subject. "I called Jack McCoy and told him that I want to testify."

"About what?" Rey asked skeptically. "All the times we almost had sex?"

"No, about what the defense said. How I influenced you because I don't like Newman."

"You didn't influence me."

"I don't like Newman. He messed with my career, he was mad at Heidi for messing with his... you think he wanted to be directing "A Tale of Two Yogis"?"

"He sure looked like he did."

"He spent five years developing An American Madam Bovary. Heidi put it in turnaround. He was furious."

"Why didn't you tell us before?"

"I couldn't prove it without accessing confidential files. Which means I'd be looking for a new job." Leesa paused for a moment, then pulled out a thick folder and handed it to him. "Here. Everything Mattawin Studios knows about Eddie Newman."

Rey took it, astonishment clearing away his discomfort being here with her. "Why?"

"I'm in a funny business, Rey. Everybody talks like hippies and acts like they're in the Sicilian mob." Leesa sighed deeply. "I'm tired of it."

===

_Saturday, March 1_  
_10:30 am_

"Oh my god," Jamie muttered to herself as she leafed through the memos. Rey had given Jamie a call and they were meeting at her house, with McCoy, to go over what Leesa had given him.

Rey rubbed the back of his neck, waiting for them to finish reading. He'd read over the memos last night, and unless there was some stupid legal reason why they couldn't be used in the trial... they just might nail Newman's coffin shut.

They were almost certainly going to nail the coffin on his marriage shut. Even though he'd said goodbye to Leesa for good, told her they couldn't keep in touch any more, it was too little, too late. It probably wouldn't make any difference to Deborah, she probably wouldn't even believe him. She certainly hadn't believed him about him not having slept with Leesa as she left his place with the girls last night, coldly telling him that he'd be hearing from her lawyer about their divorce.

One step forward, two steps back, as it had been from the beginning. Well, tomorrow he was going to go back and try to talk to her again, try to get her to...

No. He couldn't. He just couldn't. Knowing that he might be able to get her to come around after this crisis, but the next time the slightest thing happened they'd be right back to square one... no.

"I'm gonna do whatever it takes," he'd told Leesa, but he realized now that it just wasn't true. He was willing to do a hell of a lot, and breaking off contact with Leesa was a big step, but... there were limits. There had to be.

"These memos are good," McCoy commented, looking up. "Heidi Ellison definitely put the kaibosh on Newman."

"So it was all worthwhile," Rey said ruefully. "I'll tell my kids in twenty years."

===

_Sunday, March 2_  
_9:30 pm_

"Deborah... look, I'm willing to try, OK?" Rey said the next day, after the girls were in bed. "Whatever you want. I'll do it. I know I was wrong. I know it's my fault. But..."

"But what?"

"But I can't live with this on and off thing. I'm sorry, I'll do whatever you want except keep going back and forth. You want me to check in with you every hour on the hour, you want Lennie to call you and let you know I'm working late and not with some other woman - hell, you wanna check up on me with LT if you don't trust Lennie, fine. I'll find a way to make it possible. But don't - don't keep doing this. This 'now we try, now we don't'. I can't take it any more."

"I-I told you I believe you about Leesa, now. That you didn't - and that you aren't in contact with her any more. I told you I was willing to go back to counseling-"

"Yeah, but it took four days and you yelling about divorce in front of the kids before you finally calmed down and believed me," Rey broke in. He took a deep breath. "I can't do this any more. Same with staying overnight and then getting kicked out. I can't take being jerked around like this."

"So if I push you away again, that's it? You won't come back? Is that what you're saying?" Rey hesitated for a moment, then nodded slowly. "Is this an ultimatum?" Deborah asked, her voice carefully neutral.

"I guess it is. I don't mean it that way, but yeah, I guess it is," Rey said quietly.

"This isn't fair."

"None of it's fair. Deborah, I know you need to work things out. But please, work them out _with_ me."

Deborah bit her lip and nodded. "I'll need to think about it," she said softly.

"I know."

"I think... maybe you should go."

"Yeah." He got his jacket and went to the front door. "Call me, OK?"

"I will." She opened the door for him and he stepped through, stopping when he felt her hand on his back. He turned.

"I love you," she said, looking down and swallowing hard. "You know that, right?"

"I know. Me too." She drew closer to him and hugged him, and they were silent for a long time, each lost in their own thoughts. Finally she pulled away and kissed him. The kiss started out gentle and chaste, but without knowing who initiated it, they found themselves embracing passionately. Rey felt his knees growing weak as Deborah made a small noise in her throat, drawing him closer, pressing herself up against him. Oh, God, he wanted this so much-

"Wait, wait," he said urgently, his voice rough. She kissed the spot near his ear that always drove him crazy and he almost gave in. "Deborah, stop," he whispered, trying to catch at her hands as they caressed him.

"Why?" She ran her hand up his arm, making him tremble. He wound his hand into her hair, so soft, so silky, God, he missed this so much...

"No, baby, stop, we can't," he murmured, unable to stop himself from running his hands down her back, to her waist, feeling the rightness of their bodies melding together again. No, no, no. Stop this, he told himself firmly. "I don't - I don't wanna just hop into bed and forget everything for a couple hours." She kissed him and he responded, feeling his resolve falter, knowing he wouldn't be able to say no if she really wanted to keep going.

"Why not?" she murmured, nibbling at his ear again, making it extremely difficult to focus on anything other than the sensations spiking through him, short-circuiting his powers of reasoning.

"Oh god," he moaned, willing himself to keep his mind clear. "Hon, don't do this to me," he caught her hands firmly, stopping himself from touching her as he stopped her from touching him. "We'll have sex and everything's gonna be just like before and then tomorrow morning you'll kick me out again and we'll be even worse off and that just - that kills me, OK?" She looked at him seriously, eyes dazed with arousal, but thinking about it.

"I won't kick you out," she murmured, softly touching her lips to his. He kissed her back, helplessly allowing the kiss to grow deeper, wishing he didn't want this so damn much.

"Oh, don't, baby," he whispered between kisses. He buried his face in her hair, breathing in her scent and wishing so much that this was as right as it felt, but knowing it wasn't. "You will. I always hope you won't but you do. It - it breaks my heart, I can't take it any more." He held her tightly, chest heaving, his entire body screaming at him to shut up and just take what she was offering, what she obviously wanted too, and worry about the consequences tomorrow.

They were silent for a few moments, catching their breath, clinging to one another, frustration coursing through them both. Then Deborah spoke up hesitantly. "What if we both decide tonight that you're going back to your place tomorrow?"

He tried to think it over logically, knowing he wasn't really in any position to be logical, not with his hormones clamoring at him to agree to whatever Deborah wanted if it got them into bed. Not with her trembling in his arms and them so close, so close to where he wanted them to be. But... it seemed to make sense. No back and forth internal debate, telling his heart not to hope too much while his heart went ahead and hoped anyway. No dreading that the night would end in bitterness and disappointment. Up-front expectations clearly defined.

He breathed in deeply, gazing into Deborah's longing eyes, and hoped he wasn't being too much of an idiot, agreeing just because they both needed this so much. "OK," he said, and their mouths met again as they both sighed with relief and Deborah pulled him back into the house. He pushed the front door closed behind him, their passion rising until they were almost tearing each other's clothes off, laughing breathlessly at their impatience in between kisses, stumbling on their way to the bedroom. Oh God, thank You, he thought fervently as she pushed him back onto the bed and he pulled her down with him, gratefully taking her slight weight on him as she worked on his belt feverishly.

===

_Monday, March 3_  
_9:35 am_

The next day at work Lennie scowled at Rey as Rey cheerfully typed up a file.

"What the hell's the matter with you?"

"What?"

"You look like the cat that swallowed the canary."

Rey chuckled at Lennie's disgruntled expression. "Since when is it a crime to be in a good mood?"

"Since I turned fifty and realized it's damned unnatural to be cheerful first thing in the morning."

Rey grinned and kept typing.

"What's with you?" Rey shrugged. "How'd it go with Deborah?" Lennie ventured.

"OK."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Rey smiled unconsciously, saving his work and picking up another set of interview notes, tapping it absently.

"You're not wearing yesterday's clothes, so you didn't stay over..." Lennie mused. Rey's eyes twinkled with amusement as he looked up from the notes.

"You just can't let a mystery go by unsolved, can you?" Lennie stared at him, grumpy but intrigued. Normally his curiosity was highly annoying to Rey.

"If you have to know, I did stay over last night. Went back to my place this morning."

"And you were OK with that?"

"Yeah, we decided last night."

Lennie's eyebrows went up. Wha...?

"You need any more details?" Rey asked seriously. Lennie scowled at him and Rey tried unsuccessfully to suppress a chuckle at Lennie's dour expression. "'Cause if you want, I can tell you all about-"

"Stop, no, that's fine, I just ate," Lennie interrupted.

"You sure? I mean, I don't want you sitting there wondering-" Lennie mimed a slap at Rey's head, and Rey ducked, laughing at him.

"Get back to work, Junior," Lennie groused, amused but as usual a little disconcerted whenever Rey showed the slightest glimmer of a sense of humour. It was just so out of character for him.

Rey went back to work and Lennie gazed at him in complete bewilderment for a moment. He couldn't understand this at all. But it seemed to work for Rey, so whatever. Welcome to Separations of the Young and Foolish.


	8. Forgiveness

CHAPTER 8: FORGIVENESS 

_Friday, March 29_  
_5:35 pm_

"I don't believe it," Jamie Ross said four weeks later as they all gathered at Hogan Place after the Newman penalty reading. "I can't believe we actually did it."

"I can't believe it's actually over," Lennie said. "I kept thinking Gorton was gonna pull something else out of his hat."

"Are you kidding?" Jamie asked. "After Jack got Newman to call his ex a vindictive bitch on the stand while waving the barong around? Not even Neal Gorton could salvage that one." They all shared a chuckle - it had been pretty amazing manipulation on McCoy's part, and it had pretty much sealed Newman's fate.

"Speaking of the barong..." Lennie prompted Jamie, and she handed it over to him. "The property clerk's been dying to get this back. I think he makes his sandwiches with it," Lennie said, bagging it to return it to Evidence on Monday.

"Guilty _and_ the death penalty," Rey said with satisfaction, putting on his coat. "You know I thought he was gonna walk?"

"Anybody wanna go out for a drink?" McCoy asked.

"Not me. I'm gonna have supper with my wife," Rey grinned.

"Yeah, and I got a date," Lennie said with a smile. "She's no Leesa Lundquist, but she's all right." They left Hogan Place together.

"Man, am I glad this case is over," Rey commented.

"Yeah. Somehow I don't think the Henry Harp case is gonna end on such a high note," Lennie reflected grimly.

"Lennie-"

"Nah, never mind, let's not get into that again," Lennie said quickly. "Go, say hi to Deborah for me."

===

Rey toyed with his coaster at the restaurant's bar, waiting for Deborah to show up. Date night, Friday night. It wasn't as good as simply living at home, but it was a start. They'd worked out that he had the girls at his place Wednesday evenings, they went out to dinner without the kids on Friday, and he stayed at their house on weekends, sleeping on the couch. With occasional stays in Deborah's bed. Or her coming to his place on Fridays, if Rey's mother was babysitting the kids.

Not quite living at home, not quite married again, but... it was a start. Of course, they'd been more or less at this level for weeks and there was no guarantee there would ever be anything more than this, but in the meantime he was willing to wait and pray.

Slow and steady. She needed the slow, and he needed the steady.

And in a way, it was kind of exciting, going on dates like they had before the kids, occasionally bringing her to his place. No children, no interruptions... there was something to be said for having a bachelor pad.

Rey stood up as Deborah arrived, smiling in appreciation at her new dress and earrings. Lennie might tease him about his wife's expensive tastes but the expense was certainly worth it. She looked beautiful, and sexy as hell. Too bad tonight couldn't end at his place - he had a ton of work to catch up on before he had the girls for the weekend, and the babysitter tonight was a teenager who had to be home by midnight.

They went to their table and ordered, chatting casually over dinner. The kids were doing well, although Olivia was having trouble in math and Serena was wetting the bed again. Deborah had finally listened to Rey's advice to see her doctor about some odd occasional numbness in her foot, and she'd also gotten the head of the self-defence centre to agree to only schedule her on weekends.

On Rey's side, he'd had plenty of interesting cases, including one where a serial rapist on parole had apparently gone back to his old habits, but killed his victim this time. They hadn't been able to prove it, so McCoy wanted them to use Megan's Law to basically harass him back into prison. And in the Triandos case, it had turned out that the young widow had been quite innocent. Triandos had actually been killed by the young widow's mother, when the mother found out Triandos was about to toss them both out on the street.

And, of course, there was the Newman case.

"Death penalty. Handed down today," Rey answered her question.

"Oh, Rey," Deborah smiled. "I didn't want to ask - I kept thinking you weren't saying anything because it hadn't gone well, maybe that sleazy lawyer of his had gotten something thrown out-"

"No, it's over. I'm sure he'll appeal for the next ten years, but for now, he's done."

"Good for you. Good for all of you." Deborah shuddered. "If anybody deserves a needle... what a monster."

Rey nodded, sipping his wine, reflecting briefly that while he'd grown far less sanguine about the death penalty since seeing Mickey Scott's execution ten months ago, really, Deborah was right. If anybody deserved the death penalty, it was Eddie Newman.

Deborah cleared her throat as Rey took a bite of his pasta. "Just do me a favour, hon... when Newman does go... don't go see his execution, OK?"

Rey choked as the pasta went down the wrong way. As he started coughing, he gave Deborah an incredulous look and caught a slightly embarrassed twinkle in her eye as she clapped him on the back.

"Holy crap, Deborah," he rasped when he was able to speak again.

"That was a little tasteless, wasn't it?" Deborah said sheepishly.

"A little?" Rey smiled ruefully and took a sip of water. "Jesus. You been hanging out with Lennie when I wasn't looking?"

"Sorry. So... uh... how's the Henry Harp case going?"

He gave her a grateful smile for changing the subject, but shrugged uncomfortably. "It's... not too good. It's... I've been subpoenaed for the defense."

"What? Why?"

"I told you Harp made that deal for fifteen years for everything he did - the cop-killing, the robbery, the hostage taking, all of it?"

"And then when you found the hostage was dead all along McCoy tried to get out of the deal, right, I remember that."

"Well, Harp's lawyer said that if McCoy tossed the deal, he shouldn't be able to use Harp's confession, and we didn't have anything else to tie him to any of it." Deborah shook her head in disgust, having no more patience for sleazy defense lawyers than Rey did. "So we tried to find Harp's accomplice, Earl Novak. We finally find him dead in Riverside Park, go rushing in to court to let McCoy know - and we say like two words, and he tells us to shut up and takes the deal."

"Why?"

"He figured he'd prosecute Harp separately for Novak's murder - tack on that sentence to the end of the fifteen years for everything else."

Deborah frowned, slightly confused. "OK... I think I get it."

"Anyway, Harp's lawyer said he can't do that, because the deal was 'fifteen years for all events related to the robbery at Red Star Liquor Store'."

"And Novak's murder is part of that?"

"That's what she says." They both shook their heads at the vagaries of lawyers, then Rey said, "And the problem is, McCoy can only prosecute if he can prove that he had no idea Harp killed Novak when he decided to honour the deal."

"But you and Lennie told him."

"No, we just told him Novak was dead. We didn't say he'd been killed."

"But for heaven's sake, even I can figure that out!"

"Yeah, well, McCoy went up on the stand swearing he had no idea."

"In other words, he committed perjury."

"Pretty much, yeah." Deborah tsk'd in disapproval. "And Lennie backed him up." Deborah shook her head again. "And now the defense called me for Monday. And if I don't back them up..."

"There goes the case against Henry Harp. And a cop-killer gets fifteen years."

"Pretty much, yeah," Rey agreed.

"They just got up there and lied?"

"Well, Lennie says he didn't. Just didn't volunteer anything. But McCoy... yeah, he lied. He shut us up before we told him anything because he knew this might happen, and now he's saying he didn't know. And I don't get it. I mean, I can lie to a suspect no problem, but going into court... swearing to God, and then lying, it's..."

"Not everyone is honest."

"I know, I know."

"An oath doesn't mean the same thing to everybody. It means a lot to you."

Rey nodded absently, thinking about what the hell to say on Monday, then stopped and gazed at Deborah thoughtfully. "Thanks."

"What?" He shrugged. "For acknowledging that your word means something to you?" He nodded, a little self-consciously. "I think I've figured it out now," Deborah said softly and touched his hand, and he looked down, slightly embarrassed. She changed the subject. "I wish there was some way you could get up there and go along without going along, you know?"

"How?"

"Well... unless they ask you exactly what he said... you could just say you didn't tell him Novak was murdered, and leave it at that."

"That's what Lennie did."

"There's nothing wrong with that, as far as I can tell."

"Except that McCoy told us to shut up. And we know why he did that."

"You don't have to volunteer that. McCoy can say he didn't know Harp killed Novak till he's blue in the face - you don't know for sure that he knew, and you certainly don't need to call him on it."

"But what do I say when they ask me why we didn't tell him? That we didn't bother to tell him, because anybody but an idiot could figure it out on their own?"

"Yeah, wouldn't that go over great," Deborah laughed.

===

"OK, there's your cab. I'll give you a call about tomorrow-" Rey gave Deborah a quick kiss as her taxi waited to take her back home. She kissed him back and turned to get into the cab, then suddenly stopped and tugged on his sleeve.

"No, don't."

"What?"

"Don't go to your place. Come home, Rey."

"Tonight? You mean instead of tomorrow night?" Rey thought over his schedule. "Hon, I have a lotta work to catch up on, I was gonna do it tonight so I wouldn't have to worry about it tomorrow-"

"I don't mean for a visit. I mean, come home."

It took Rey a moment to process that. "You mean... for good?" Deborah nodded and the cabbie made an impatient sound. Deborah waved him off and he pulled away. "You sure?"

"Yeah. Get a sublet for your place. I miss you, the girls miss you - this whole weekend thing is silly."

"You're absolutely sure?"

"Yeah," she took his hand and smiled at him. "I can't promise everything is gonna be the same as before, but... at least let's tear up the separation papers."

They gazed at each other for a long moment, smiling, then he drew her close. He bowed his head and tightened his arms around her, relief flooding him so completely he was awed. Thank You, God, he thought. Longest penance he'd ever done, but it was finally over.

Thank You for seeing us through this. Thank You for guiding us. And thank You, thank You, for allowing me to get my family back. For letting me stop hiding from my sin and come clean and still have a family to come back to. I won't stray again. I'll deserve this second chance You've given me.

"Come home, Rey," Deborah murmured.

===

**Author's note:** a million thanks to Kyllikki, Gypsum and Chris, for beta and mucho hand-holding :)


End file.
